The footprint of the clock tower which once graced the skyline of Vittoriosa will be marked out as part of an embellishment project which will see the walled city’s main square be partially pedestrianized.
According to a tender document published by Infrastructure Malta, galvanised steel with a rust-look finish will be used to delineate both the footprint of the clock tower and likewise the footprint of the original extents of the square.
“This constitutes an important and integral part of the design of the piazza,” Infrastructure Malta said in the tender document.
The six-floored Vittoriosa clock tower dominated the city’s central square, which is where it stood for centuries. Believed to have been built initially as a watch tower in the Medieval period, the Order of St John then enlarged or rebuilt – depending which source you read – it in 1541.
It was used as a surveillance post during the Great Siege in 1565 before the Order sold the lower part of it in 1572 to a family from Ghaxaq to use as a private residence. It became a clock tower in 1629 when a clock was placed on the top floor, and remained prominent in the city, to the point that it was included on the Antiquities List of 1925 by the British authorities of the time.
The tower stood until the square was hit by a bomb on 4 April 1942, during the worst of the bombings on Malta as part of the Second World War. Part of the tower collapsed a week later, and the rest of the tower was again hit by a bomb two weeks later. What was left of it was deconstructed carefully in October 1944.
Since then, much debate has been centred on whether it should be rebuilt or not. The Historical and Cultural Society of Vittoriosa organized a meeting requesting the rebuilding of the tower on 19 December 1954, but nothing ever came of it.
Part of the tower’s foundations were then discovered in 2004 during an excavation, but the dispute as to whether the tower should be rebuilt continued. Government funding for the reconstruction was approved in 2006, but plans for the reconstruction never went through.
Now it seems that the government has settled on the decision that the tower will not be rebuilt, but will instead be commemorated within the confines of the newly designed square.
The new design includes plans for the landscaping of certain areas within the square – which was previously all tarmacked over – for the creation of a pedestrian area, including seating, while still maintaining the flow of traffic through the city.
The number of parking spaces which used to be in the square is also set to decrease, while the existing outdoor catering areas covered by planning permits will be maintained.
The plans presented in the tender give the possibility of the existing outside catering area being expanded by 88.45 square metres along the edge of the square as long as this expansion does not include the construction of platforms and is built up to the same level of the other approved catering areas, using the same material and paving finish and with planters as a barrier to the road.
Although six soil areas – designated as ‘planters’ – are set out in the plans, the tender document makes no mention of any trees being planted in them.
The tender plans also specify that the traditional Saint Lawrence Feast Umbrella would be situated in the middle of the square anyway, incidentally right next to the footprint of the clock tower.
The estimated procurement value of the tender as a whole is of just under €1 million – specifically €984,719.27 excluding VAT – and tenders must be submitted by 1 February 2024.