Project Description
When Self-government was achieved in 1921, the first general elections in Malta were held on 1 November that year. From 1921 to 1976 sessions were held at the Tapestries Chamber of the Grand Masters Palace, Valletta which became the seat of Malta’s first constitutional parliament after 120 years of direct British rule. In 1976, the former armoury of the Order of St. John within the same palace was converted into a new parliament.
As part of the Renzo Piano City Gate Project, implemented with the direct involvement of GHRC on behalf of the Maltese government, a new parliament building was constructed on the site of Freedom Square between 2010 and 2015.
Freedom Square, situated at the very entrance of Valletta, until then served to hold sessions of Carnival and other events, a car park and for the Monti, an open-air market.
The demolition of the arcades of Freedom Square began in October 2010 including excavations and penetration into the old railway tunnel, and the main structure of the building was ready in 2012. The area was approximately 7000m2, in which some 12,000 cubic meters of the hard limestone quarried in Gozo, were cut into specific shapes in Italy and returned to Malta were used. Some 6500m2 of similar stone paving slabs were laid, commencing from the bridge across the ditch to Triq Nofs i-Nhar and Pjazza de Vallette, of which 2500 were used in part of the square and around the parliament building. The total workforce on the construction site amounted to between 120 and 150 workers daily, some even working at night.
The new parliament building was completed by the end of 2014 and estimated at the cost of around €70 million. It was inaugurated by the President of Malta on 4 May 2015.
