Architecture of Ibiza Town Centre.

General introductory plans:

• Map of Ibiza town centre.
• Dalt Vila.

  (Reduction of an original to the scale of 1:500, with ground plans of buildings of most interest in the walled enclosure, prepared specially for this publication.)

No. 1 is the Punic-Roman necropolis of Puig d'es Molins, a hill covered with ancient olive trees and riddled with countless hypogea and passages, constituting the most important archaeological site in the whole of Punic art. It seems strangely out of place inside the urban limits.

The Arab and renaissance walls occupy numbers 2 and 3 respectively in the guide.

Descriptive plans of the walls:

• Plan of the triple enclosure of the Arab wall (2i), incorporated in the first renaissance wall by J. B. Calvi, including the stretch designed by him was never constructed.

  This plan situates on the present-day layout of the city J. B. Calvi's version of the Arab walls first attempted by Antonio Costa Ramón in his book "La Triple Muralla de la Ibiza Arabe"- and shows their visible remains.

• Plans 2ii and 2iii. Descriptions by J. B. Calvi of the Arab walls: in the first the elevations, and in the second by their ground plans.
• Plans 3i 3ii and 3iii Different descriptions of J. Fratin's modification of Calvi 's plan

The undeniable interest which Ibiza's walls have as an isolated monument is enhanced by the way in which they rorm the citys double image.

The North face is a hill of architecture unruffled by the coexistence of different styles, which owes its perpetual image to the joint contribution of the renaissance walls forming the outer ribbon, and the Arab walls which guide the crowning of the whole complex.

On the South face ("EI Soto"), distinct from and complementary to its northern counterpart, the presence of military control until 1972 has preservd the image of an impregnable fortress, just as it has appeared for twelve centuries.

Architecture in the high part of the city is directly linked to the different stages of construction of the walls.

The first enclosure of the Arab wall occupies the highest section of the town. The Cathedral (No. 5) and the Castle- Almudaina (No. 4) occupy almost half the area; together they form the last fortified redoubt and contain the outstanding elements of the city: the homage tower and the cathedral belfry.

The Almudaina has been the object of successive transformations, and all that remains of its medieval structure are a few towers and perimeter walls. Inside are Simon Poulet's barracks building (plan 4i) and the former City Hall (plan 4ii-X).

The Cathedral, or Church of Santa Mar¡a, still retains from the original Gothic structure the bell-tower, part of the five apsidal chapels, and the two nave chapels. The central nave and its lateral chapels were reconstructed in the eighteenth century; this, however, has not altered the buildings exterior unity in any way thanks partly to the fact that time has weathered the more recent stone so that it blends with the Gothic section, and partly to the rotund structure of the dome buttresses.

A clock incrusted in the belltower heightens the importance of the frontal view of the tower within the city façade and measures the city's time, a function formerly stressed by the inscription "ULTIMA MULTIS".

The rest of the area stretches along Calle Obispo Torres (formerly Calle Mayor) following the contours of the wall, between the Cathedral square and Calle San Ciriaco. The façades along this street are those of the city's old seigniorial houses.

In the Cathedral square (No. 6), are the old public buildings: the University (now the Archaeological Museum), the Curia House, and the Episcopal Palace. Calle San Ciriaco joins the two first sections although the remains of the stretch which acts as a boundary between both are scarce. The zigzag layout here is the characteristic feature which shows that the main access to the original wall was situated at this point.

The architecture in Calle Obispo Torres is described as a whole in the guide (No. 7), special attention being paid to the unusual Casa Comasema (No. 8).

The second enclosure is similar in structure to the first, with Calle Juan Román performing a similar role to that of Calle Obispo Torres. In this zone -inside Casa Fajarnés- is preserved all that remains of the sentry road along the walls described in plan 21- (2n).

In the third enclosure, which corresponds to the original suburb outside the Arab city, there is no main street. We have instead here the most labyrinthine and picturesque sector of the city. Jacobo Fratin's modification to Calvi's plan gave space for the borough of Santa Lucia, offering considerable expansion possibilities to the city while preventing any considerable extension of the walls lengthways since the eastern cliffs were used as a natural fortification to which Fratin's own fortifications were to be joined.

The natural slope of the area, enclosed by the new walls, was enhanced by the urban layout and buildings, which became the front of a more modern city with its main façades facing the bay.

Calle Pedro Tur was where most of the bourgeoisie settled and the first example of a public way with representative characteristics: wide, smooth and straight, with a new awareness of its own perspective and clear vistas over the sea and surrounding lands the rural parishes by two roads, one which left from at both ends, it is the longest street in the whole upper town and contains the best examples of residential architecture.

The most interesting house is Casa Montero (No. 11). It was constructed by Genoese master builders -who were at the time working on the Dominican Monastery- for the also Genoese Fonne family. Of considerable dimensions, it rises above the city displaying its sober and uniform façades crowned by a cornice supporting a four-sloped roof.

The building with the greatest surface area within the renaissance walls is the former Monastery and Church of the Dominican Fathers. It has undergone successive alterations and extensions and been used for several different purposes: Town Hall, jail, and educational centre.

Around the central nave of the Church there is an agglomeration of varied volumes which connect different public areas. The care and skill with which the side chapels have been added have ensured that no light is stolen from the original central nave, even though its exterior is the most complex part of the building.

The former defense areas on the fortifications, today gardens and public buildings, the traditional seat of the citizens' institutions, occupy a large part of the surface of Dalt Vila, contributing to its urban quality, though seen from the bay the area appears to be a compact mass of housing.

The plan shows the most recommended routes for visiting the area inside the walls, from which the city layout and architecture can best be appreciated. For those who have the time it is well worth visiting it in its entirely.

The first districts outside the walls -La Peña, La Marina, and El Poble Nou- are limited by the perimeter of the walls and the water's edge. Each district has its own characteristics which derive from the different stages of expansion.

La Peña is the suburb of the renaissance walls, situated on rocky ground at the foot of the Santa Lucia bastion and built along strikingly horizontal streets, parallel to the sea, in a complex network reminiscent of the third enclosure inside the Arab walls. Its first major front was the Calle Mayor which formerly ran, for the most part, beside the sea.

The area of Sa Drassaneta, in the centre of this seafaring neighbourhood, was, as its name recalls, originally a boatyard.

Later expansion gave rise to the area known as "La Bomba", between Calle Mayor and Calle Garijo. Calle Carijo, running alongside the port, changes in atmosphere from time to time: occasionally it is a wide, open space overlooking the port, and at other times a closed street when boats are at their moorings.

The district of La Marina, next to that of La Peña, was bounded by the wall called La Estacada which ran along the present-day Calle de Montgrí from the San Juan bastion to the sea, and whose main gate was originally situated in what is now Calle de la Cruz. It was the first district of the city to be built on level ground and its appearance today is the result of modern buildings having filled the spaces between the original detatched constructions. Plaza Constitución, with its vegetable market reminiscent of classical temples, is the most outstanding feature of the district, and marks the foot of the incline which leads up to the Portal de las Tablas, the main access to Dalt Vila.

EI Poble Nou is the earliest of the programmed expansions of the city. Planned in 1848, it lies between La Marina and the second stockade, now Calle Conde de Rosellón.

In these neighbourhoods one can still see buildings with their original colours: pinks, reds, ochres... which recall the Italianate air which today's white city -more abstract and modern- had in former times.

The nineteenth-century city of Ibiza was connected to Portal Nou in the Calvi wall and the other from the second stockade. The minor roads leading into the interior of the island branched off from these two. In 1849 -one year after the Poble Nou project- a poplar grove was planted in the stretch which led from the Puerta de la Cruz, a grove which up to the beginning of this century was still a tree-lined avenue outsid the eity, beautifying its entrance. In 1904 the monument to General Vara de Rey was erected in the grove and in 1912 the architect José Alomar planned there what was to prove be the most coherent single urban feature of twentieth-century Ibiza.

From Paseo de Vara de Rey and along the roads, terraced houses or detatched houses with gardens were built during the first third of this century, forming the first residential suburbs, and in "Es Viver", a neighbourhood of second residences appeared.

These spontaneous beginnings of expansion were destined to be engulfed by new urbanizations and few examples now remain.

The modern city is arranged in straight interlacing streets between the axes of the two Main roads, and the layout scheme is favoured by the flat terrain on Pla de Vila. This expansion is characterized by "corridor" streets between housing or commercial blocks, and lacks any particular design interest.

The district of Las Figueretes, in Puig des Molins, is an exception, thanks to its topology and variety of types of construction.

The most significant of the present-day trends in city growth is the one which runs along the bay. The looseness of the soil had hitherto prevented construction here, and the area was occupied with irrigated fields or "feixes" whose gates are still in some cases of a form similar to those of Ancient Egypt, while others incorporate elementary classical decorative elements.

The atractive view over the old town coinciding a with an ideal orientation and new foundation techniques have been determining factors in the construction of new buildings in the area; an a occupation which began with the filling-in of the bay -now the sea promenade- marking the end of the natural landscape background of the port and the panorama which the city's inhabitants had contemplated for centuries.