Inside Richard England’s Soulful Retrospective

For Richard England, the 88-year-old Maltese architect and Mediterranean modernism master, Le Corbusier’s oeuvre was an inspiration—evident in the soulful forms of his commissions like St. Andrew’s Chapel in Pembroke from the 1980’s. So it’s fitting that England’s first international retrospective, “Looking for Richard,” is at Gallery Kolektiv Cité Radieuse, inside the Unité d’Habitation de Marseille, Corbu’s 1952 French housing unit. The influence of Gio Ponti, for whom England worked in the early ’60’s, can also be seen in the 16 projects represented via large-format photographs and dozens of England’s original drawings—striking scenes in vibrant marker-felt pen—exhibiting pastel-tinted exterior stone and arched, rectangular, and square openings.

“I’ve long ago realized that architecture is the least lasting of all the arts,” England, who recently delivered a lecture at Gallery Kolektiv, said in a 2023 interview, noting that several of his early designs have been changed or demolished due to real estate pressure propelled by offshore financial activities (the show is also a sort of call for Maltese architecture preservation). But many still stand, including the glorious Aquasun Lido pool from 1983—and are even recently completed, like the Santa Venera meditation garden and chapel for Dar il-Hanin Samaritan.