Richard England
THIS HOLY EARTH Art, Education, defaultart inspirational education by Nataša Pantović
Yesterday, I was privileged to listen to FFA (a Maltese NGO: All for Environment) organised interview, with Richard England discussing his life and work, people he admired and learned from, and his need to create architecture with love.
Richard England #environmentalist Interview THIS HOLY EARTH
One of the first anecdotes Richard has narrated was when he had returned home in 1962 after completing his studies at the University of Milan and an 18 month apprenticeship in the studio of Gio Ponti. When Richard showed his father (also an architect) the recommendation letter that he got from Ponti (the Italian architect was his father's favourite), praising his work, his father, has decided to entrust him with the commission of the Manikata Church. It was the small Parish Church of Saint Joseph in a village of Malta. The church was built by around 500 of the area’s farmers on a volunteer basis.
Manikata Parish Church designed by Richard England
The farmers wished to build a church with a bigger dome than the village next door. The new church’s unorthodox form and the young architect’s new ideas have been published in the prestigious Architectural Review. The publication served as a sign of authority for the villagers and the Church to embrace it. “We cut the stone, one by one.” Recalled Richard. Now, to draw a building is easy but making a building is like fighting a war. Once you make a sketch, you are against so many forces: the client, builders, planners, and you have to present your ideas to the public.
The architect’s first project was followed by a string of important works – the Garden for Myriam in St. Julians, which is dedicated to his wife, an extension at the University of Malta, St Francis of Assisi Church in Qawra. He also worked in Baghdad and Belgrade.
'Mythopoli' series Richald England drawing
Richard England (born Richard England Sant Fournier on 3 October 1937) is a Maltese architect, writer, artist and academic.
Among his best known buildings in Malta are the Church of St Joseph at Manikata, the Central Bank of Malta Annexe, the Millennium Chapel and the St. James Cavalier Centre for Creativity in Valletta.
Richard England has lectured and worked in the following countries: USA, UK, Ex-Yugoslavia, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Italy, Argentina, Poland, Bulgaria, Russia, Kazakhstan and his native Malta.
Richard England Quotes from the interview:
What is architecture for you?
The Vitruvian triad that buildings should have three attributes: firmitas, utilitas, and venustas. In other words strength, utility, and beauty. I searched for a sense of continuity. Italy has this continuous reference to the past. Memory is hugely important, so, any architecture is an extension of the past,
Who do you admire?
I was lucky because my father was an architect. To me, architecture is not a profession, it is a vocation, it comes from the heart. I continuously learn from many great minds. The architecture of the Neolithic period is my great inspiration, this was the time when architects were magicians, high priests. Regretfully over the last decades Malta has suffered intense environmental damage.
Secular vs Sacred Spaces
It was Antoni Gaudí who said that the most difficult task for an architect is to build a church, you are measuring against the immeasurable.
As Axel Munthe said: “The soul needs more space than the body.” I wished to create spaces that can lift our spirits and enhance the way we live. In the world we live in today, we need silence, a place where the soul is uplifted.
I always like to ask, can we make an architecture that cuddles? Can we make an architecture that will make us feel happy? The design itself should be made with love.
Richard England Drawings
2 'Mythopoli' series Richald England drawing
One thing I always remember Ponti saying is, “Draw first, measure later.” at least one hour would be spent with him at the drawing board. I still draw one drawing a day. Drawing as opposed to photos, leaves one with a deeper understanding of the subjects, it remains with you.
The elimination of the non-essential, ultimately, what makes a good project is what Mother Teresa said: “The important thing is not what you do but how much love you put into doing it.” And I believe it is that love that is observed in the energy of the architecture work.
The Maltese islands are today experiencing a period of tragic loss of aesthetic values. We have the lost the plot. The Malta Environmentalists, Architects and Planning Authority all have to act and take the responsibility for this lost war.
Richard England Poetry
THIS HOLY EARTH
I tread these ancient time-worn tracks
memorials to the syntax of this land
to probe the molten silence of this place
and sense its pulse-beat in the air
the call of man’s ancestral dreams
haunts the shelter of these stones
while shriveled leaves from borrowed skies
fall beneath the voids of emptiness.
I walk the darkened alleys
of this place called loneliness
through stabbed realities
of once sacred dreams
breathing sounds of sorrow
in this lot of time
not the passage of years
nor death can hush this place.
I sit in this shadowed garden
a body scattered in wounded fragments
singing canticles of mourning
in cemeteries of evening twilights
my path marked by fear
in frozen wastelands of desire
I seek to find a reason
for man’s self-inflicted death.
I kneel and touch this holy earth
to feel its fertile throbbing force
chant a muted sacred prayer
that the spirits of this place
may once again attain
their long-lost custody of this land
recall the ancient rites of old
in a stillness of all sound removed.
I stand timeless
in calendared reference of yesterdays
and will a potent sleep
my dreaming spirit turns
wraps a silver mantle round my world
lights up the eclipse of this life
dreamscapes in landscapes
from somewhere back in time.
I trace this temple’s winding paths
coiled in web-like spiral shapes
while echo-messages from these stones
see me through the darkness of these years
work the colours of my life
carve alchemies in my changing bones
and guide me through the walls of time
where death exists no more.
His buildings and designs have earned him numerous awards, including eight International Academy of Architecture Awards and two Commonwealth Association of Architects Regional awards. Others include the Gold Medal of the City of Toulouse in 1985, the International Committee of Architectural Critics Silver Medal in 1987, the 1988 Georgia, U.S.S.R. Biennale Laureate Prize and an IFRAA – AIA Award for Religious Architecture in 1991. In 1996 he was the winner of the International Prize at the III Architectural Biennale of Costa Rica and in 2000 he was the recipient of the Gold Medal of the Belgrade Architectural Triennale.
Art of 4 Elements Book Launch and Exibition in Spazju Kreattiv or Saint James Cavalier
Spazju Kreattiv or Saint James Cavalier is a 16th-century cavalier in Valletta, Malta, which was built by the Order of St John. It overlooks St James' Bastion. The building was restored by the architect Richard England, and it is now a cultural centre known as Spazju Kreattiv.
„Seated on a panel with her fellow writers, Maltese-Serbian novelist Nataša Pantović has been known to use slam poetry to perform her poetic body of work. Like her prose, the improvised words, tribal music, sounds, lengthy ‘aum’ chanting, are neither too preposterous nor too earnest but endlessly curious. A bridge builder between East and West, following ancient archaeological findings, she often dives into historic settings more than 2,000 years back in time.“
Sunday Times A Beautiful Mind.
Art of 4 Elements: Discover Alchemy through Poetry, is AoL Mindfulness Book #2, a collaboration of 4 International artists living at the time in Malta: a Serbian Maltese Nataša Pantović (Nuit) with MSc Economics, a Chinese American Jason Lu with BA of Arts, a Maltese Christine Cutajar with MA in Creativity, & an English Jeni Caruana with BA in Arts, who teamed to create this amazing mystical journey of 120 poems and 120 art works. The poetry acted as an inspiration for the work of the artists. These mystical meditations of the "Art of 4 Elements" artists were chosen to be exhibited in the prestigious Centre for Creativity, St James Cavalieri, in Valletta, Malta.
Richard England No comments on Richard England: