Utopia i realitat: de l'Illa Plana a la fundació de Nova Tabarca

The engineer Méndez Ras developed, between 1766 and 1779, the projects that transformed Plana Island in the town of San Pablo de Nueva Tabarca, which evolved in its urban, architectural and technical definition. Four planes of great rigour and high graphical quality are analyzed from the set of plans. The first one (1770) explains the military approach and territorial scope. The second one (1771) designs residential areas for the population. The third one (1774-75) develops an extensive program of civil constructions. And the fourth one (1779) unfolds the entire urban and military agenda. The chronological succession evidences the idea that the whole fortified square is a warlike artefact and a rainwater cistern simultaneously. This drawn utopia, in which city, architecture and water form a unity, collides with the obstinate reality of nature: a 1789 plan describes the final and ruinous state of the executed works.