If Menorcan architect Nicolau Rubió i Tudurí had his way almost a century ago, Spain today would be a very different country from the one we know. And probably historical too. After all, in the summer of 1931, when the Second Republic was still taking shape, what Rubió i Tudurí proposed was to move the nerve center of the nation 270 kilometers in a straight line, no more, no less: to capture the capital. Go to Madrid and take him to Utebo, a small town in the province of Zaragoza, which at the time had only 2,500 inhabitants.

A committed Catalanist, the architect’s starting point was very clear: A new model of country needed a new capital, starting from scratch. Or almost. To this end, he designed an entire plan, including graphics, that would contribute to the exciting and sometimes crazy dystopian history of the country today.

New country, new capital. To understand Rubió i Tudurí’s idea, you must first understand its context. He put his proposal on the table in July 1931, when he presented it at an exhibition of the Association of Architects of Catalonia and in a short review published in the magazine. attentionIt can still be consulted today on the website of the Virtual Historical Press Library (BVPH). In both cases it was beyond words. To add further flourish, the architect created schematic yet clear infographics about his dream capital model.

As strange as their idea of ​​creating a new capital was, so was the context in which Rubió and Tudurí came up with the idea. Only a few months had passed since the proclamation of the Second Republic, currently governed by the provisional Government led by Niceto Alcalá-Zamora, and the new Constitution would be promulgated some time later, in December of the same year. With this background, the Menorcan architect decided to contribute to the discussion and design of the republic, drawing from his own particular vision of the country. Like? Eliminating the team and designing a “new federal capital”.

Infographic collected in the ‘Mirador’ article, 16 July 1931.

clean slate. “A Federal Republic, if it becomes Spain, cannot have as its capital a city accustomed to 500 years of centralism,” says the architect, garden designer and urban planner from Maó. Attention. Convinced of the necessity of this change, he focused his attention, probably to the surprise of many of his colleagues, on the surroundings of a town in Zaragoza: Utebo, which had about 2,500 inhabitants at the beginning of the same decade.

It’s no coincidence that he noticed her. The town was at similar distances to Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Valencia and Bilbao, very close to Zaragoza and on the banks of the Ebro River “The language, the transport, the relative neutrality of the country and others suggest this place,” Rubió and Tuduri thought. Paying tribute to the role he had to play and the proximity of the Ebro, the intellectual decided to rename what would become the capital of the Spanish Republic with a worthy name: Iberia.

Farewell megalopolis. The architect believed there was one more reason to bet on Utebo. Something that goes beyond geography, geopolitics or culture. Rubió y Tudurí believed that a city that would be the capital of a State should not be large or crowded, but rather highly functional.

“Should it be said that a modern capital should be a city government and not what is called a metropolitan city?” asked the urban planner: “It seems to me that there is no need to repeat these well-known things.” And he cited some specific cases in the US or Australia to strengthen his argument. “The examples of Washington, Canberra or New Delhi in India are illustrative enough.”

Infographic collected in the ‘Mirador’ article, 16 July 1931.

A “trouble-free” new capital. “Spain needs a new capital for its Federal Republic, built for the efficiency of government functions, without the complications of a large city, without industry, without independent commerce, without ‘personality’,” said Rubió and Tudurí: “A neutral city, without the complications of a large city, without the complications of a large city, without ‘personality’, built for the efficiency of government functions”. and where representatives of federal activities live”.

To accommodate this highly practical role, limited to corporate and administrative roles, he even proposed that the city have “limited growth” and not exceed 150,000 registered residents, roughly the current population of Logroño. When it comes to describing your project in pages attentionRubió i Tudurí itself assumes that it is not an urban project “made to please” but rather based on a fundamentally functional and practical perspective.

A corporate street map. “Aesthetics do not belong to architecture, but to objective architecture,” he emphasizes. Infographics confirm this vision of a technocratic, gridded city, designed from the ground up with a 100% practical criterion that eschews ostentation. Government functions will be concentrated in buildings spread across two lines, which will house the political secretariat and ministries.

The offices of the Prime Minister and the Parliament will be located in a key location, and not far from there will be the Constitution and other key institutions that will ensure the good functioning of the republic, such as the headquarters of the Supreme Court, the Mint or the Guard. federal. The plan also includes a park, the presidential residence and the homes of ambassadors and senior officials.

No private car. “The residential function is occupied by three rows of skyscrapers 120 meters high, separated by tree-lined areas. Between the second and third rows there are two large areas for play,” he says. The Iberia he dreamed of was also based on a peculiar model of urban mobility: with almost no private cars and a public transport network running through underground pipelines and even equipped with “airlines”.

To travel to or arrive in the capital from other cities on the peninsula or from foreign countries, Iberia will have its own intermodal station, an “air-rail-motor” terminal equipped with its own hotel at a height of 240 m. Wanting large towers does not mean that Rubió y Tudurí was willing to compromise on architectural recreation: Rubió emphasized that all his ideas should be interpreted as “the conversion of a political structure into cement and iron”.

The biggest question of 2024. Rubió and Tudurí’s ideas remained in this. Opinions. Three years ago Utebo Municipal Council approved Country There are those who state that none of his ambitious plans were ever built, and that today the Menorcan proposal is not a “seriously considered” political and architectural approach but a “research balloon” launched in a very specific political context.

In any case, plans, descriptions and arguments remain… And an equally fascinating question: why did Maó’s architect focus precisely on Utebo and not on another town in the region? In addition to the geographical and political advantages it brings, there are those who believe in it. attentionThe architect managed to explore the town of Zaragoza during the 1929 International Exhibition.

A replica of Utebo’s impressive Mudejar tower was built for this event. Today, almost a century later, this replica still exists in the Spanish Village of Montjuic. The ideas of Rubió and Tudurí are preserved in archives and newspaper archives, and they continue to surprise even today, well into the 21st century.

Pictures | Santiago López-Pastor (Flickr) and Virtual Historical Press Library Archive (Ministry of Culture and Sports)

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