Archipals – A Present to Malta’s Past

Zack Ritchie Design

Completed Projects – Culture. Heritage

Malta

Company Name

Zack Ritchie Design

COMPANY COUNTRY:

Malta

ARCHITECTURAL CREDITS

Zack Ritchie, Zaha Hadid Architects, DAS Architecture Studio, JP Projects

Project Team

Zack Ritchie, David Muscat, Annamaria Attard Montaldo, Kobus Spangenberg, Josef Hili, Chiara Oldoni

CLIENT OR OWNER NAME:

Confidential

Project Name:

Archipals – A Present to Malta’s Past

Project Country:

Malta

Project City:

San Ġiljan

Project Category:

Culture. Heritage

Project Area:

Open public Space where all five sculptures stand is ~6,850 sqm, The Public Sculptures Occupy ~45 sqm

Completion Date:

2024-01-01

Project overview

Malta is an ancient island. Mercury Towers is a Zaha Hadid Architects building, sharp and modern. Archipals is the bridge between them.
Five cast bronze characters, each one a piece of Maltese heritage made human. A prickly pear. A knight. A luzzu. A prehistoric goddess.
Placed through the open public spaces, they reach a child and a grandparent in the same second, in any language. Locals see their own history differently. Tourists learn it through curiosity, not signage.

Project history

Mercury Properties commissioned sculptural landmarks for the open public spaces of their Zaha Hadid Architects tower in 2023. The brief grew as the work did.The client saw what Disney saw. A landmark can be a mascot. A mascot can be a souvenir. A souvenir can be something people actually want to keep.The five characters were cast in bronze and finally installed permanently in 2024. Over 400 ODM products were designed around them and distributed, first across the complex, then across the island.The impact showed up in behaviour. People travel to the site to see the characters. They touch them, photograph them, share them. Children find Beppe the cactus first, every time. A building people walked past became a place people go to.Two Platinum wins followed at the 2024 International Architecture and Design Awards.Malta already had monuments. What it did not have was one a five year old would run towards.