Focus on this artwork and explore the Proposed relocation.
In 2011, works began on a project by Renzo Piano to redesign the entrance of Valletta. This project included rebuilding the City Gate and landscaping the surrounding area, and Piano recommended that the Triton Fountain be shifted some distance away from its location immediately outside Valletta's entrance. The proposed relocation was announced by the Ministry for Infrastructure, Transport and Communications in April 2011, and it was meant to create an open space and restore "the architectural and historical context of the entrance to the fortified city". The approach to the City Gate would be flanked by trees and only accessible to pedestrians, while the fountain was to be restored and shifted to the garden opposite the Hotel Phoenicia, close to the Malta Memorial and the MCP car park. This would have moved the fountain from the limits of Valletta to Floriana.The proposed relocation was controversial, and although some welcomed the proposal, most people were against moving the landmark fountain. Opponents stated that since the fountain has an underground system of passages, it is impossible to move it without destroying and rebuilding it, and the fountain might not work at all if moved. Concerns were also raised that the Triton figures would be damaged if they were to be moved. In December 2011, Minister Austin Gatt announced that the fountain will not be moved, and after restoration it will serve as the centerpiece of Piano's redesigned entrance to Valletta.The fountain was scheduled as a Grade 1 property by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority on 8 May 2012, as one of the "20th Century Modernist Architecture and Monuments in Valletta and Floriana". On 28 December of the same year, it was included on the National Inventory of the Cultural Property of the Maltese Islands.
Hotel Phoenicia National Inventory of the Cultural Property of the Maltese Islands Malta Environment and Planning Authority Austin Gatt Valletta City Gate Renzo Piano Malta Maltese Modernist Malta Memorial Floriana