Tourism Place Making
“Styled-for-Status” — This Is the New Trend in Urban Place Making
The aesthetics and wealth of the global elite are taking over the famous historic cityscape of Valletta, Malta.
by Janet Speake and Victoria Kennedy
Place making is how places develop a special ‘look’ (aesthetics) and feel over time. For historic cities, political power, property development, and tourism drive the place making process. They have transformed the visual cityscape of older cities around the world, including Valletta, Malta.
The Historic City of Valletta
Valletta (Il-Belt in Maltese) is the capital of the small, Mediterranean city-island-state of Malta. It is a compact city of about 6,000 people in an area of 0.84 km2 located on a narrow peninsula.
Valletta is a UNESCO World Heritage City with a distinctive cityscape that dates from the 16th century. It is well-known for its fortifications, cathedrals and domes, palaces, and canyon-like streets of high-density housing. Architectural styles also reflect French and British colonial influences from the past.
But the architecture and design of Valletta are changing. The powerful, global, and mobile elite (super-rich) are impacting Valletta’s unique cityscape. Large investments in up-market property developments are changing the face of Valletta. The lifestyle values and architectural preferences of the affluent elite are now more common.
‘Styled-for-Status’ in Valletta
We call the transformation of Valletta “styling-for-status.” It is changing the visual appearance of Valletta. And it is also changing the tourist experience of the city.
The historic city of Valletta is one of Malta’s most visited destinations. Thus, how tourists respond to the changing cityscape, with its increasing mixture of old and new design styles, is important.
The area around Valletta’s main entrance, the City Gate (Bieb il-Belt), has three striking examples of change in the visual cityscape:
- Triton Place and the restored Triton Fountain (Il-Funtana tat-Tritoni) are just outside the City Gate. The restoration created new views of Valletta and the neighbouring fortified town of Floriana (Il-Furjana).
- The City Gate has been completely remodelled. The renovations have affected the bridge and historic fortifications. The former moat is now a landscaped garden that provides a grand entrance to the city.
- The new Parliament Building (Il-Parlament il-Ġdid) was designed by ‘star-architect’ Renzo Piano. It is just inside the City Gate on the side of the renovated Freedom Square (Misraħ il-Ħelsien).
- The nearby Pjazza Teatru Rjal is an open-air performance space created within the ruins of the former Royal Opera House. It has also contributed to the revitalisation of this City Gate area.
Two other prestigious redevelopment projects outside the City Gate area in Valletta are:
— The renovated 19th century Covered Market (Is-Suq tal-Belt)
— The MUŻA, The National Museum of Fine Arts (in the former 16th century Auberge D’Italie)
These all incorporate many of the stylistic features of contemporary Transnational Design. This means high-quality design, expensive building materials, subtle landscaping, and discrete signage. Many of Valletta’s new boutique hotels, cafés, restaurants, and up-market shops also exhibit these design features.
So far, much of the cityscape change is in the City Gate area and on Republic Street (Triq ir -Repubblika), the main thoroughfare. Redevelopment has yet to reach the buildings and narrow streets of residential neighbourhoods.
But, ‘styled-for-status’ design and gentrification are impacting more and more of the city.
The transnational design culture of Valletta exists in almost every major city across the world. Its common, standardised, clean-lined aesthetics are easily recognised. Although we ‘know it when we see it’, we rarely think about what creates this look, or why it is in so many places.
Finding the Styled-for-Status ‘Look’ Near You
Based on our research in Valletta, and in other cities, we have applied the concept of aesthetic common sense (see Speake & Kennedy, 2019b) to place making, so that we can explain the role of aesthetics in the creation of today’s cityscapes through the following steps:
- The aesthetic preferences of the affluent elite shape how the look of cities evolves. These favour attractive waterfront locations, panoramic views, and the subtle use of muted colours and landscaping. Their preferences define what is ‘good-looking’ and ‘prestigious’ in contemporary cities. They tell the less affluent what a city should look like. (See: Speake & Kennedy, 2019a, and Speake, Kennedy & Love, 2021).
- Architects and urban designers adopt the aesthetic preferences and values of the affluent elite. They then create buildings and urban environments styled-for-status and prestige. In doing so, they are engaging in ‘top-down’ place making, also known as ‘placemaking’. (See Lew, 2017 and Mansilla & Milano, 2019.)
- Tourism authorities and others use styled-for-status cityscapes for place/destination promotion. They want to ‘show’ (mediatise) and ‘sell’ (commodify) the city as successful and contemporary.
- These actions influence many people, including less-wealthy tourists. They are encouraged to visit and ‘buy into’ the styled-for-status city. In this way, tourists and other consumers of cities contribute to a type of bottom-up place-making. They also shape how a city develops and evolves. (See Lew, 2017.)
How much less wealthy residents mimic the aesthetics of the wealthy elite varies. It depends on how much investment capital they can access, the creativity of local designers and architects, and what planning laws permit.
Impacts of Changing Aesthetics on the ‘Look’ of Valletta
In Valletta, as in many other cities, the changing aesthetics/look of the cityscape is due to:
- Large scale, planned, ‘top down’ design, such as Valletta’s Parliament Building and the Covered Market;
- Small step-by-step changes, as seen in the up-grading and re-styling of individual apartments and shops on Merchants Street (Triq il-Merkanti) and Strait Street (Triq id-Dejqa).
The impacts of these changes on existing cityscapes can be irreversible. Despite warnings by academics and others, the negative impacts of cityscape change can shock residents and visitors alike.
In Valletta, there are growing concerns about the loss of its traditional appearance. This has resulted in opposition and resistance by local people to the aesthetic and other values of the affluent elite.
One concern has been the loss of pastizzerias (kiosks and small shops selling local pastries called ‘pastizzis’). In redeveloped areas, many traditional pastizzerias have closed or relocated. New pastizzerias tend to be up-market and expensive. But, due to public pressure, some traditional pastizzerias have remained open, such as in Triton Place.
The Future of Styled-for-Status Development
Malta is well-positioned to stay competitive in the challenging Mediterranean tourism market. It continues to be attractive to wealthy transnational investors.
The expansion of upmarket developments and gentrification will continue in Valletta. It is one of several up-market destinations in Malta catering to wealthier, ‘post-mass’ tourists.
Valletta’s tourism is vulnerable to changing trends in international tourism and global investment capital. Other external factors. such as the COVID-19 pandemic, also impact its economic and social well-being.
The aesthetic preferences of the affluent global elite also have an impact on tourism. Standardised, transnational designs bring uniform and familiar aesthetics for tourists. But it also challenges a city’s distinctiveness, identity, and unique selling points.
This article is based on:
Janet Speake & Victoria Kennedy (2019) Changing aesthetics and the affluent elite in urban tourism place making, Tourism Geographies, DOI: 10.1080/14616688.2019.1674368
About the Authors
Janet Speake, PhD, is an Honorary Research Fellow at Liverpool Hope University and Visiting Scholar at Queen’s University Belfast. Her research interests centre on the contemporary transformation of urban areas, spaces of affectivity and the impacts of satellite navigation technologies on spatial awareness.
Victoria Kennedy, PhD, is Lecturer in Tourism at Liverpool Hope University. Her research interests include stakeholder theory and engagement, tourism policy, power, destination management and seaside tourism.
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