Los proyectos de torres para la isla de Nueva Tabarca, 1788-1793

Between 1766 and 1769, Planesia or the island of Santa Pola was measured and accurately depicted. In the following decade, from 1770 to 1779, the different projects for the exploitation of resources and fortification of Nueva Tabarca -as the island was renamed- were drawn up on the initiative of the Spanish crown. A series of plans detail the evolution of the urban development project of the island citadel, whose designs are due to the engineer Méndez De Rao; but when he died in 1782 and Charles III died in 1788, the works were not completed and the government no longer considered this place a priority, exploring alternatives with a single tower to watch over the city built there. From that date onwards, various projects for isolated towers followed one after the other in order to choose the one that would most effectively fulfil the defence mission with the lowest budget. Two early projects, dating from 1789, offer alternatives with elementary types: one with a circular plan and the other with a horseshoe plan, both signed by A. Ladrón de Guevara. A second project was drawn up at the end of 1789, signed by B. Ricaud, whose volume corresponds to the typology of a prismatic fort, to house a detachment, with the ground plan structured in ‘nine squares’, one of whose outer rows folds to adopt the profile of a pincer; it is an architecture of greater capacity and military sophistication. However, it must have been considered costly because in 1793, F. Gilver Federichi, on the island itself, drew the fort that was finally built, which was a synthesis of the previous one, transforming the almost square plan into a rectangular one that loses the ornamentation and, in exchange, widens its outer wall. Thus, through the proposals drawn for the tower of San José in Nueva Tabarca (deposited in the Service Historique de la Défense, Paris) we can see the typological evolution of the coastal defences of the late 18th century, which opted for geometric rationalisation and economy of material resources.