This article delves into the origins of the internationalisation of the first works of Ricardo Bofill's Taller de Arquitectura (RBTA), tracing a genealogy that goes through five pieces built in Spain in the decade 1965-1975 that had great repercussions in the professional mass media abroad: the Gaudi Quarter (Reus), Kafka Castle (Sant Pere de Ribes), La Manzanera with Xanadu and the Red Wall (Calpe) and Walden 7 (Sant Just Desvern). All of them, with a greater or lesser profusion of pages (first with black and white photographs and, after, in colour), were reproduced in L'Architecture d'Aujourd d'Hui (Paris), Architectural Design (London), Architectural Forum (New York), Architectural Review (London), Architecture and Urbanism (Tokyo), Abitare (Milan), Baumeister (Munich), Global Architecture (Tokyo), Progressive Architecture (Stanford) and Zodiac (Milan), among others. In addition, the text traces, in particular, the media fortune of the different tourist properties of the La Manzanera complex in Calpe: the Castillo-Plexus (1963-1966), Xanadu (1966-1968), the Red Wall (1968-1973-1975) and the Viaduct (1975). In this journey, the magazines' eagerness to supply iconic images to the detriment of plans to a public eager for novelties is evident, but this strategy served for the RBTA to disseminate its own poetics and signs of identity through architectures that were striking in their material and chromatic formality. The text stops when RBTA is developing the Les Halles competition in Paris in 1973-1975, reflecting on the evolution of the compositional systems from the modular combination to the hierarchy of the Beaux Arts systems, entering into a new historicism that the magazines once again sanctioned.

Benidorm es la ciudad turística de sol y playa por excelencia de España, condición que alcanzó en los años 70 del siglo XX. Gran parte de su éxito como destino vacacional ―además de por su estable microclima y sus excelentes playas (de Levante y de Poniente), así como por su variada oferta de ocio para todos los públicos― se debe a su escena urbana. Es la ciudad europea con mayor densidad de rascacielos residenciales, que comenzaron su construcción en 1963. Por ello se aborda el primer plan general de ordenación de la ciudad, de 1956, y la modificación que permitió los skyscrapers, los cuales adoptaron la tipología americana de prisma esbelto, apoyado o no, sobre una plataforma comercial en las plantas de contacto con la calle. Se detectan dos generaciones de rascacielos. Una primera, desde 1963 hasta mediados los 80, desarrollada gracias al empleo de estructuras metálicas, las cuales permitieron rozar los 100 metros de cota, ya que no hubo límite de altura: a edificabilidad constante, cuanto más alto, menos espacio ocupaba en planta. Y una segunda, desde entonces hasta 2008, donde los nuevos rascacielos incorporaron el hormigón de alta resistencia, volviéndolos más seguros y permitiendo rozar los 200 metros. Ambas generaciones han mantenido la exigencia de grandes espacios libres comunitarios donde las piscinas y los jardines son los protagonistas. Se completa el discurso con los dos paseos marítimos, el parque lineal protagonista de toda ciudad litoral: el de Levante y el de Poniente, que han logrado articular la difícil frontera entre la ciudad y sus extensas playas, dotando de dos singulares elementos urbanos, siempre abarrotados de público, que ayudan a leer el skyline de la ciudad como una silueta no necesariamente caótica. El texto también se detiene en el rascacielos ‘tumbado al sol’ que constituye su nuevo Ayuntamiento.

The Orders of Architects in Spain date back to the 1930s. Among their duties was to keep copies of their members ' work for the purposes of civil liability for projects, but custody was not indefinitely. After this period, many of these documents, graphic and written, have been lost, but those that remain bear witness to knowledge that new technologies dilute. A renewed approach to the management and communication of this heritage is urgently needed. We need to select and digitise paper projects to ensure their preservation and new life. We need to rethink tomorrow ' s Archives as technical and cultural tools in a society that inc reasingly recycles its buildings to make the planet more sustainable. To think about the future, it is appropriate to make an inventory of the present: a map of 20th century architectural archives. This communication will explore a first mapping of the archives of the Professional Orders of Architects in Spain, their services and their archival collections (both paper and digitised). It is true that some of these Orders receive professional donations, new autograph collections that enrich those of heliographic copies. We will analyse the two most advanced depositories in Spain: Madrid (COAM) and Barcelona (COAC), without losing sight of other more recent ones (such as Valencia), to discover their capacity, services and new functions available online. These data will be crossreferenced with those of other institutions that have also started activities to collect and digitise selected documentation. This state-of-the-art analysis will allow an initial assessment of the feasibility of generating a network of interconnected archives. This network will foster the transformation of dead fonds into living materials of a Virtual Museum of Architecture (MVA) by revealing latent meanings and adding new layers of information and virtual visualisations.

This paper presents the development and structure of a geospatial (work in progress), architectural heritage database designed to document, interpret, and valorize Second World War military fortifications in Sardinia. Currently hosting over 1800 georeferenced entries—including bunkers, artillery posts, underground shelters, and camouflage systems—the database constitutes the analytical core of an interdisciplinary research framework that interprets these remnants as a coherent wartime palimpsest embedded in the contemporary landscape. By integrating spatial data, archival sources, architectural features, conservation status, camouflage typologies, and both analog and digital graphic representations, the system operates as a central infrastructure for multiscale heritage analysis. It reveals the interconnections between dispersed military structures and the wider territorial fabric, thereby laying the groundwork for landscape-based interpretation and site-specific reactivation strategies. More than a cataloging tool, the database serves as an interpretive and decision-making interface—supporting the generation of cultural itineraries, the identification of critical clusters, and the design of adaptive reuse scenarios. While participatory tools and community engagement will be explored in a second phase, the current methodology emphasizes landscape-oriented reuse strategies based on the perception, spatial storytelling, and contextual reading of wartime heritage. The methodological synergy between GIS, 3D modeling, traditional drawing, and archival research (graphic and photographic documents) contributes to a holistic vision of Sardinia’s wartime heritage as both a system of knowledge and a spatial–cultural resource for future generations.

Nuevas ecologías es un libro reflexivo y propositivo a la vez, en el que se abordan estrategias proyectuales sobre la ciudad contemporánea desde una escala intermedia que se plantean desde la óptica de las ‘nuevas ecologías’ en sustitución del tan manido y estandarizado concepto de la sostenibilidad. Se trata de un texto corto, así como ágil y ameno, donde se reúnen algunos escritos de los autores a propósito de sus cursos de Proyectos Arquitectónicos entre 2008 y 2011, tanto en la Harvard University como en la Universidad de Alicante, a lo que siguen entrevistas a Iñaki Ábalos, Grupo Aranea, Ciro Najle, Francesc Muñoz y Enrique Walker, se ilustra con algunas imágenes de proyectos de los estudiantes que trabajaron sobre el Ensanche de Barcelona y está precedido por un prólogo de José María Torres Nadal. Aunque los autores parecen lamentarse del hecho de que el libro haya sido publicado una década después de que tuvieran lugar las experiencias que en él se recogen, también entienden este decalaje como una circunstancia que lo ha dotado de diversas capas temporales que añaden a los contenidos una dimensión diacrónica. El libro se inserta en la colección Denise Scott Brown, que cuenta con la coordinación editorial de Moisés Puente.

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.

The Sardinian coastal landscape is historically characterized by a network of sentries built between the 16th and 20th centuries. This system consists of the imposing guard towers built during the Spanish and Piedmontese reign and bunkers and batteries designed in 1942-1943 to counter an imminent Allied landing. The bunkers, camouflaged by using materials from the area or with forms that recall functions other than military ones, are an important part of an architectural heritage currently under study for its recovery and valorisation, also within cultural itineraries. The area of Is Mortorius, in the coastal territory of Quartu Sant'Elena (CA), preserves many military structures from different eras. In addition to the presence of the nuraghe called Diana, reused during the Second World War as a rangefinder, the small promontory overlooking the sea hosts the ruins of a Spanish tower, numerous anti-aircraft stations, connected by underground tunnels, and some bunkers built with the use of reinforced concrete and lined with local stone and shapes that remind the nearby nuraghe.The proposed study, based on a historical analysis of the events that took place during the Second World War, provides for the application of integrated methodologies of survey and representation of architecture and landscape; UAV applications, aimed at the construction of a digital model of the context, direct and instrumental survey with laser scanners for a reading of underground routes, drawings from life through different techniques (watercolour, pencil and pen drawing) to grasp the character of the place and to promote, through the composition of a knowledge mosaic entrusted to history and drawing, a correct knowledge of the material and immaterial heritage of the wars of the twentieth century.

The so-called Mediterranean Wall—a term referring to the system of coastal defenses built between 1936 and 1945 across various Mediterranean countries—exhibits distinct characteristics when compared to the Atlantikwall. Unlike the latter’s continuous and technologically unified design, Mediterranean defenses were fragmented, heterogeneous, and closely adapted to local territorial and environmental conditions. This article analyses the morphology and geographic distribution of these military landscapes in Spain and Italy, approaching them as architectural and landscape heritage with specific material and perceptual features. A two-phase methodology is adopted: the first involves the identification and documentation of existing reuse interventions, supported by fieldwork and archival research; the second presents a comparative evaluation of four selected case studies based on criteria such as restoration practices, accessibility, and landscape integration. The comparative analysis highlights a wide spectrum of adaptive reuse strategies and underscores the multidimensional challenges of valorisation. Rather than treating these structures as static wartime remnants, the article advocates for their reintegration into broader cultural, ecological, and touristic networks. Through a holistic approach combining architectural reuse, inclusive accessibility, and civic participation, the Mediterranean fortifications may be transformed into dynamic sites for memory, interpretation, and environmental awareness—reframing their legacy within contemporary territorial narratives.

Walter Benjamin said in 1939: “There is not a single document of culture that is not at the same time a document of barbarism” (Mate 2009: 130).Historically, the Mare Nostrum has been a sea of cultures, but also a fortified sea: the FortMed congresses are evidence of this. We are almost all familiar with the Atlantikwall, built by Germany between 1942 and 1944 from France to Norway: a unitary and systematic project whose decay inspired Paul Virilio's exhibition Bunker Archeology in 1975.However, other southern European countries had already begun to build their own walls, and others did so in parallel. We call the ‘Mediterranean Wall’ the set of defences that were built between the two great wars –and decades later– along these shores.This discontinuous wall is composed of a scattered system of almost prefabricated pieces that, mysteriously, conform to the tradition of military architecture that has otherwise always been at the forefront: technically precise, form and function intimately united, and economical like no other. These stubborn reinforced concrete ruins that stand the test of time are, perhaps, the first of modern architecture.

In the first half of the eighteenth century the island of Carloforte is the subject of a project aimed at the birth of a new settlement. The intervention has a strong affinity with the eighteenth-century Spanish settlements (Nueva Tabarca, 1775) both from an urban point of view and for the common events related to the redemption of the inhabitants of the island of Tabarca in Tunisia.The new fortified city thought by the Piedmontese engineer Augusto De la Vallea - operating in Sardinia in the period 1735-44 - occupies a strategic position close to a hill that, facing the south-western coast of Sardinia and protected from the prevailing winds, check the docks on the island and the nearby salt pans.The project of the military technician previews the realization of a fortified citadel modelled from the shape and from the disposition of plastically defined bulwarks to adapt to the topography of the places and to guarantee the control of the surrounding territory.The drawing, drawn up with considerable skill, describes the landscape context, the methods of tracing the perimeter of defence and through a design practice "Enlightenment", orders the urban layout, planning the layout of the urban space according to a Cartesian layout modelled, in its outer perimeter, by the silhouette of the fortress. A new line of defence, wider and embracing the citadel and showing a settlement developed towards the coastline, is readable in documents of the early nineteenth century that dated 1808-1810, represent a part of the perimeter of the citadel designed by De la Vallea.The contribution proposes a careful graphic-design analysis of the project of the Piedmontese engineer, an analysis of the construction events and a comparison with the most recent documents and the current urban layout of the city.

The Colleges of Architects in Spain date back to the 1930s. Among their duties was to keep copies of their members' work for the purposes of civil liability for projects, but custody was not indefinitely. After this period, many of these documents, graphic and written, have been lost, but those that remain bear witness to knowledge that new technologies dilute. A renewed approach to the management and communication of this heritage is urgently needed. We need to select and digitise paper projects to ensure their preservation and new life. We need to rethink tomorrow's Archives as technical and cultural tools in a society that increasingly recycles its buildings to make the planet more sustainable. To think about the future, it is appropriate to make an inventory of the present: a map of 20th century architectural archives. This communication will explore a first mapping of the archives of the Professional Colleges of Architects in Spain, their services and their archival collections (both paper and digital). It is true that some of these Colleges receive professional donations, new autograph collections that enrich those of heliographic copies. We will analyse the two most advanced depositories in Spain: Madrid (COAM) and Barcelona (CAC), without losing sight of other more recent ones (such as Valencia), to discover their capacity, services and new functions available online. These data will be cross-referenced with those of other institutions that have also started activities to collect and digitise selected documentation. This state-of-the-art analysis will allow an initial assessment of the feasibility of generating a network of interconnected archives. This network will foster the transformation of dead fonds into living materials of a Virtual Museum of Architecture (MVA) by revealing latent meanings and adding new layers of information and virtual visualisations.

Reseña de libro: Ignacio González-Varas, El culto a la memoria. Ética y estética. Madrid. Ediciones Cátedra, 2023, 334 pp. ISBN: 978-84-376-4669-5.

L’uso dei plastici nel processo di progettazione è stato una pratica comune nel corso della storia che ancora perdura. Nonostante lo sviluppo delle nuove tecnologie e la loro sofisticata capacità di rappresentare e prefigurare l’apparenza di ciò che viene progettato, i modelli fisici architettonici continuano ad affascinarci ancora oggi. La loro matericità, insieme alla loro tridimensionalità e alla capacità di riduzione dell’architettura come oggetto fisico, continuano a renderli un veicolo di comunicazione eloquente e uno strumento insostituibile. È difficile immaginare un concorso di una certa importanza in cui gli architetti non presentino modelli o foto degli stessi. Analizziamo qui l’uso dei modelli nel processo di progettazione di Alberto Campo Baeza, l’importanza che hanno in esso e, anche, la possibile influenza che esercitano sul suo stesso lavoro. È necessario aggiungere che i modelli vengono utilizzati nel suo studio per gli scopi più diversi. Qui viene presentata un’analisi dettagliata delle tipologie di modelli utilizzati da Campo Baeza e dei vari scopi comunicativi, espressivi, concettuali, di contestualizzazione, come veicolo per il processo creativo, verifica di effetti di luce, o come strumento eloquente da manipolare, ottenendo una sintesi e una anticipazione di vari aspetti dell’architettura. Nel corso di questa ricerca viene proposta una tassonomia delle tipologie e degli usi dei modelli dell’architetto spagnolo, entrando nel merito delle loro capacità come strumenti di progetto.

In the first half of the eighteenth century the island of Carloforte is the subject of a project aimed at the birth of a new settlement. The intervention has a strong affinity with the eighteenth-century Spanish settlements (Nueva Tabarca, 1775) both from an urban point of view and for the common events related to the redemption of the inhabitants of the island of Tabarca in Tunisia.The new fortified city thought by the Piedmontese engineer Augusto De la Vallea - operating in Sardinia in the period 1735-44 - occupies a strategic position close to a hill that, facing the south-western coast of Sardinia and protected from the prevailing winds, check the docks on the island and the nearby salt pans.The project of the military technician previews the realization of a fortified citadel modelled from the shape and from the disposition of plastically defined bulwarks to adapt to the topography of the places and to guarantee the control of the surrounding territory.The drawing, drawn up with considerable skill, describes the landscape context, the methods of tracing the perimeter of defence and through a design practice "Enlightenment", orders the urban layout, planning the layout of the urban space according to a Cartesian layout modelled, in its outer perimeter, by the silhouette of the fortress. A new line of defence, wider and embracing the citadel and showing a settlement developed towards the coastline, is readable in documents of the early nineteenth century that dated 1808-1810, represent a part of the perimeter of the citadel designed by De la Vallea.The contribution proposes a careful graphic-design analysis of the project of the Piedmontese engineer, an analysis of the construction events and a comparison with the most recent documents and the current urban layout of the city.

Reseña del libro: Mar Loren-Méndez (ed.). (2022). Arquitectura, ciudad y patrimonio. Historia, teoría e intervención contemporáneas. Abada Editores. 692 pp. ISBN 978-84-19008-19-0.