Implementation strategies by the sea: Vandellòs Nuclear Power Plant, Antonio Bonet

Abstract

This paper seeks to analyze the implementation strategies used by Antonio Bonet Castellana (1913-89) in relation to the place and the watermark. We analyze a single project that is located on the Mediterranean coast: Vandellòs Nuclear Power Plant, l’Hospitalet de l’Infant, Tarragona (1967-72). Understanding this architecture means moving beyond the boundaries of the building itself and the plot, and defining the intervention accurately on the geographical scale. This paper defines the site, analyzes the existing components of the landscape and the water cycle, through the water path, from the mountains to the sea. This definition avoids treating this architecture as an isolated building that can be placed anywhere. The relation with the sea, the mountains, the ravines and the mouths are intended to make sense of the project. Bonet’s first approach around these landscapes and the first implementation strategies may be timely for its application in current urban planning, urban reactivation and industrial recycling methods. The strategies that we describe are particularly interesting the current landscape deteriorating, which mainly affects to the spanish mediterranean coast, by the rupture between the environment and the architecture; nature and human being.