St Julian’s: Modernist landmark threatened by Stivala’s 14-storey hotel

An iconic modernist building in St Julian’s dating back to the late 1940s could be demolished to make way for a 14-storey, 136-room hotel.

Designed by architect Robert Musumeci for developer Carlo Stivala, the proposed hotel will replace the building known as Palazzina Vincenti, which is up the road from the City of London pub.

Palazzina Vincenti was the family residence of renowned architect and developer Gustavo Romeo Vincenti, who designed it. The house was later inhabited by his son Hilaire Vincenti, who died in 2019 at the age of 92.

The building, characterised by its austere apertures and protruding curved balconies, does not currently enjoy any level of heritage protection and parts of it are in a dilapidated state. The building also has a tunnel that leads directly to the foreshore.

In March 2019, a formal request to schedule it was presented to the Planning Authority and the Superintendence for Cultural Heritage by Edward Said, an architect and lecturer on 20th century Maltese architecture at the University of Malta.

MaltaToday is informed that the request is still being considered. “This house is worthy of Grade 2 listing at the very least… It is a landmark piece of Maltese modernism of the late 1940s,” Edward Said told this newspaper when contacted.

Architect Conrad Thake described Palazzina Vincenti as “structurally daring building” worthy of protection but regretted the reluctance to grant protection to modernist buildings. “Our appreciation of modernism remains very low and calling for their protection remains a hard sell,” he told MaltaToday.

The proposed development is set to include a hotel, offices, restaurants at ground floor level, a gym, fitness studio and spa, a theatre and games room.

The development is being proposed by Carlo Stivala, who declared that he does not own the entire site, but has been granted consent by the other owners for the application.

Until 2020, Stivala was one of the four owners of Stivala Group Finance plc, before leaving the group to pursue private business ventures. The development will include three underlying parking levels for 59 cars and a further 23 parking spaces on its second floor which will be accessible from Triq il-Kbira. An indoor and outdoor pool, a pool bar with two “gabbanas” are also being proposed on the rooftop.

Vincenti’s legacy

Born into a wealthy business family in Valletta, Vincenti was able to purchase land and design and build buildings which he would then sell to clients.

Some of his best creations in Dingli Street in Sliema are designed in the Italian liberty style with floral frieze designs, such as the art deco double-fronted two-storey townhouse ‘Assisi’. Other buildings designed by Vincenti include the Italian embassy and Vincenti Buildings in Valletta, a large block of apartments constructed in the 1930s.

Ultimately his versatility led him to shift towards modernism and experimentation with reinforced concrete, therefore evoking a new architectural language.

Some of his buildings are influenced by Swiss French architect Le Corbusier. According to Said, this style is epitomised in Vincenti’s personal mansion in St Julian’s “where fillet-edged cubic volumes pierced picture windows and divided with spacious concrete cantilevers all sit on a podium of garages”.

Another modernist creation of his is a complex of four houses in Ta’ Xbiex built in 1936, collectively known as Vincenti Buildings, with each of the houses being named after one of the four evangelists. “Living in an age of experimentation, Vincenti, excelled his architectural boundaries through the innovative use of materials and distinctive profiles and geometry,” a dissertation by David Ellul published in 2018 states.