The City Council of Pamplona, in partnership with the School of Architecture of the University of Navarra, has promoted the design of a paper cut-out model of the Citadel based on official cartography (plans and aerial photographs from all periods) and several specialized publications, among which the books of J. J. Martinena and José Luis Prieto published as part of the municipal collection 'Fortifications of Pamplona' and the book of Victor Echarri The Walls and the Citadel of Pamplona'.

The modeldesigned to be mounted on a MDF board or on feather board, consists of four sheets of paper with an accurate design graphic. On the first one, the complete floor plan is drawn in a dimension of approximately 600 mm x 600 mm and includes a descriptive legend of the components, as well as a brief explanation of topic. The remaining three sheets correspond to the development of all the elements of the fortification that must be cut out, folded and glued, etc. The model is accompanied by some brief assembly instructions to help those who are not familiar with the execution technique.

Initially, one thousand units of this model have been published and are on sale at the price of 10 euros through the Pamplona City Council Tourist Office and the Interpretation Center of the Fortifications of Pamplona-Fortín de San Bartolomé. This informative initiative and character educational on the fortified heritage of the city is part of the FORTIUS program Tourist and cultural enhancement of the fortified heritage of Pamplona and Bayonne and is funded by the European Union through the Operational Program for Territorial Cooperation Spain-France-Andorra (POCTEFA), which is managed in the Community of work of the Pyrenees (CTP).

Understanding the geometry of the defense

José Antonio Sacristán, director of the laboratory of the School of Architecture of the University of Navarra, has directed a team of students formed by Miguel Acebrón García de Eulate, Samuel Arricibita de Andrés, Sara Gainza Sagaseta, Sandra García Navarro and Mikel Perea López to realize this work of research with a double purpose: to deepen in some fields of study obligatory for architects and, at the same time, to make them known to the public in an attractive way. The realization of the model will help its "builders" to develop spatial vision and precision work guide .

The informative nature and educational of the proposal is based on the fact that the people who embark on the assembly will become familiar with the disciplines that were used for its original design and its current reproduction: historical and social conditions that have determined the configuration of the current city, drawing, in its technical and artistic variants, and the use of the latest generation of computer tools, both for graphic representation and three-dimensional modeling.

The Citadel is configured as a sophisticated defense device, a complex structure in which each component has a defined and precise function based on a mathematical fact: the firing range of an infantry piece of the time in which it was designed, which is precisely the length of the line that joins the two points farthest from each other between which a direct shot is possible.

Comments on the final image

In the cut-out model presented here, we have drawn the complete walled complex prior to the demolitions carried out in 1889. However, the buildings that have been represented in the place of arms are those that existed at the time of the cession of the fortification to the City Council of Pamplona, from agreement with the data of the descriptive historical report written by Commander Prieto. The plates also explain which buildings and walls are still standing today.

To make the result more expressive and didactic, the design team has employee a resource that is common in three-dimensional representations of those elements that have a reduced height in relation to the plan dimensions, such as topographic maps: the scale has been doubled in the vertical direction, so that the model grows in height, as if it had been "stretched" upwards.

The Mayor of Pamplona, Enrique Maya, received the first assembled model from José Antonio Sacristán, director of the laboratory of the School of Architecture of the University of Navarra, Eduardo Domingo, director of development at the same center and Samuel Arricibita de Andrés and Sandra García Navarro, representing the team of students involved in the project.

After this first approach to the volumetric representation of a fortified element, the laboratory of Architecture of the University of Navarra plans to continue with the development of project representing some of the elements of the fortified perimeter at a larger size, with more detail and realism, or to design a model adapted to children, with a different graphic design and simpler assembly procedures. Its members also do not rule out experimenting with the construction of the set or some of its parts with other materials, using numerical control modeling tools. The academic institution has been working for some time with machines for processing materials from computer models; in addition, any of the machines at laboratory can be used to investigate other representation techniques: laser cutters for flat materials, plastic printers and milling machines for large parts.