The Ruined Opera House

The Royal Opera House was designed by Edward Middleton Barry — son of Charles Barry, architect of the Palace of Westminster — and opened in 1866, when Malta was a British colony and Valletta was the social capital of the Mediterranean Fleet. Fire gutted it in 1873. It was rebuilt and reopened four years later, grander than the original.

By the spring of 1942 few places anywhere were taking more bombs. The island is a few square miles of rock, and the harbour below this ridge was where the submarines and aircraft that preyed on Axis shipping to North Africa were based, so the raids came in almost without pause. A direct hit brought the opera house down.

Then seventy years passed with nothing resolved. Restore the 1860s building, put up something modern, or leave the ruin alone: each option had its constituency, administrations turned over, competing schemes were commissioned and abandoned, and the shell stayed where it was at the entrance to the capital.

The decision taken in 2013 refused both options. Conservators froze the standing walls and column bases in the state the bomb had left them, then set a light canopy of steel and glass down inside the shell to make an open-air theatre. On a summer evening there is an orchestra playing under the stars inside a bombed building.

The two great stone blocks opposite, appearing to float above the ground on slender columns, are Malta's Parliament House, opened in 2015 and also by Renzo Piano. The thousands of facets on its stone were milled by computer-controlled cutters and are not decoration: the pattern is calculated so the facade shades itself, like a rock face, and the offices stay cooler. Locals call it the cheese grater.