Leonardo Torres Quevedo. Naval Engineering in the work of the most prodigious inventor of his time is a temporary exhibition that can be visited at Carol Iglesias Espazioa until 24 November 2024.

Made up of a series of 12 panels, with images and texts, some models and other elements, the exhibition covers the life and work of Leonardo Torres Quevedo (Santa Cruz de Iguña, Cantabria, 1852-Madrid, 1936), described in 1930 by the newspaper Le Figaro as ‘the most prodigious inventor of his time’.

Some of his discoveries, including the patent on self-rigid airships or passenger ferries, such as the one on Mount Ulías in Donostia or the one in Niagara; the telekino or first remote control (predecessor of the drone); and his Essays on Automatics, with which he was several decades ahead of the pioneers of 20th century computing, made him the most outstanding mathematical engineer at the end of the 19th century.

But the main novelty of this exhibition at Itsasmuseum is that it will reflect Torres Quevedo’s close connection with Bilbao, where he spent a large part of his childhood, and where he also carried out part of his pioneering work in the field of naval engineering: the electric boat Vizcaya, to which the telekino was adapted, in the Nervión Shipyard, would become the first remote-controlled ship in the history of the Bilbao Abra; the ship Camp, the project for the first steamship offered to the Sociedad Española de Construcciones Navales, would become the model for the first Dédalo of the Spanish Navy and for the successive steamships of the US Navy; and, above all, its binave, built in the Euskalduna Shipyard and tested in the estuary on a voyage between Santurce and Santoña, would become the origin of modern catamarans.

Curator of the exhibition

Francisco A. González Redondo holds a degree in Mathematics (Universidad de Cantabria), a PhD in Philosophy of Science (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) and a PhD in Mathematics (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid). Professor of History of Science at the UCM, he divides his time between research, teaching and scientific dissemination beyond the academic world.

Leonardo Torres Quevedo: his life, his world (Los libros de la Catarata) is a recent publication in which, for the first time, a chapter is devoted expressly to his work as a naval engineer.