ArchShowcase Sumit Singhal
Sumit Singhal loves modern architecture. He comes from a family of builders who have built more than 20 projects in the last ten years near Delhi in India. He has recently started writing about the architectural projects that catch his imagination. Mattia Preti Hotel in Valletta, Malta by Chris Briffa ArchitectsMarch 4th, 2011 by Sumit Singhal
Marsamxetto Harbour will site a new, sea-front hotel, integrating a contemporary building with a 16th century period house; believed to have been occupied by Valletta’s renowned artist Mattia Preti.
A pedestrian, stepped walkway will detach the new construction from the old, revealing the corner façade of the old house, while providing public access from Marsamxett Road to Old Theatre Lane. Glass bridges will link the two buildings above the public walkway, while a glazed façade on Old Theatre Lane will introduce the energy of a busy hotel atrium into an otherwise very narrow and dreary alleyway. With the site lying directly above the Valletta-Sliema ferry dock, a proposed public lift (accessible from the street while lying in the hotel’s footprint) will connect Marsamxett Road to the seafront below. This will facilitate vertical access to guests, visitors and locals arriving from across the harbour. The adjacent and currently derelict water polo pitch will be converted into the hotel’s lido and beach facilities, possibly also reinstating the defunct Valletta water polo club. The visual integration with the adjacent buildings and fortifications, particularly when viewed from across Marsamxetto Harbour, required an aesthetic that had to be primarily centred on the use of local limestone. Old and New are integrated in their materiality and separated by distinct voids. The new stepped walkway and a recessed floor will create this separation in the form of strong ‘shadow gaps’ in order that both remain clearly identifiable. We wanted to ensure views from the rooms, and yet were preoccupied with antagonistic, large glazed apertures. This led to the creation of a delicate, sculptural skin; which satisfied both concerns. Approaching the hotel from either side of Valletta’s peripheral road at first presents a façade built entirely out of stone. The façade’s tactile geometry, borrowed from the nearby bastions, reveals the apertures only when one stands directly in front of the building. From across the harbour, the prevailing areas of stone and the vertically proportioned openings merge happily with the surrounding windows and gallarija cityscape. This new experience of the city, we are very hopeful, will promote Valletta as a top international destination, while restoring the sophistication and innovative motivations of its original enlightened architects and creators. Contact Chris Briffa Architects
Category: Hotel |