The Ministers of Culture and Health should hang their heads in shame. One of the architectural gems of this country has been allowed to fall into such a state of disrepair that it is most unlikely that the government will be in a position to fund the cost of its rehabilitation. The building concerned is the old New Amsterdam Hospital, and in case any readers missed it, we carried a feature on its current state on page 9 of our Sunday edition (August 17). As everyone who has an interest in the heritage of this country well knows, it represents one of the very few surviving structures designed by the late nineteenth-century, Maltese architect Cesar Castellani. Actually, the government knows this too; it is just that to all appearances it is really not much concerned about the material heritage. Its philistine credentials, it seems, are as impressive as were those of its predecessor.
It was the PNC, of course, which can take the credit for the deterioration of the old Palms building to a point where it could not be restored, and that too was a Castellani edifice. At the time it was built the local wags regarded it as so imposing, they suggested the governor should move into it, and the indigent for whom it was built be transferred to what is now State House. Be all of that as it may, the present administration has to bear the responsibility for its own shortcomings in the heritage department, and these are not minor. They include the sad saga of the former Chess Hall in Main Street, to which Mr Kandasammy refers in his letter today. Apart from the extraordinary dilatoriness with which the government acted in relation to this building, when they actually did get around to sourcing some money for its restoration, it collapsed into dust before any work could be done on it.
Of course the government will put up a defence for itself by adverting to the fact that it saved Red House, for example. It has to be said that the governing party had an emotional attachment to this particular building because it had once been the home of Dr Cheddi Jagan when he was premier, and therefore it seemed a fitting repository for his papers. While everyone concerned about the nation’s heritage was happy that the Red House was saved no matter what the motive, it must be observed that the administration has displayed far less alacrity when no such emotional attachment is involved. This leaves it open to the charge that in a general sense it is indifferent to matters of material history and aesthetics.
It has been pointed out before that perhaps Guyana’s greatest architect of public buildings has been particularly unfortunate. Castellani’s work on the city’s Catholic churches – both the cathedral and the Sacred Heart – was lost to fire, and then, as mentioned above, one of his major secular buildings became the victim of a philistine government. What is particularly hurtful about the case of the New Amsterdam Hospital, however, is that the Minister of Health had given the media the impression that it would be maintained, and uses would be found for it. What does he plan to tell the media if it crumbles into dust? The only thing that has been done to it in recent times, is that the fence has been mended to stop vandals going in.
Mr Kandasammy cites the case of a high-level meeting which he attended where a political figure commented that “they” – presumably the government – would prefer to buy a tractor than restore a building or erect an archive, as the financial returns from such an investment would be faster. Whoever the political figure was, it was at least a frank admission of what citizens know from their own experience about the true views of the administration. That presumably is the real reason why the New Amsterdam Hospital has never been listed as a national monument.
And here we are in Carifesta, celebrating the cultural heritage of the Caribbean, but not, it seems, the material heritage of this country. So what then, is Carifesta all about? Do only certain aspects of culture count as culture in the administrations mind? In addition, in terms of tourism appeal, does the government seriously believe that tourists want to see the amorphous concrete pill-boxes that litter the urban landscape from the US mid-West to Port of Spain, rather than the unique and aesthetic architecture of this land which they cannot see anywhere else?
A lot of Guyanese from the diaspora, including Berbicians, should be in the country for Carifesta. Let them raise their voices by writing letters, lobbying the relevant ministers and suggesting sources of funding to save what was at one time the architectural jewel of the Berbician capital. Do not let another philistine administration get away with this kind of neglect of a heritage which belongs not to the government, and not even to this generation of citizens, but to generations to come.
