Netflix’s Rose Island gives viewers the chance to relive a unique moment in engineering history set against the backdrop of political and social revolt in the 1960s.
In 1967, fueled by a lifelong quest for autonomy, maverick engineer Giorgio Rosa completed the construction of a 400-square-meter platform some 12 kilometers off the coast of Rimini, Italy. A mere 20-minute boat ride away from the sun-kissed coast and outside Italian jurisdiction, The Republic of Rose Island declared its independence on May 1, 1968.
Furnished with several amenities such as a restaurant, a bar, a souvenir shop, and even a post office, Rose Island had all the trappings of a sovereign micronation. Rosa appointed himself president, and the tiny nation had its own currency (Mill), postage stamps, and even an official language (Esperanto). To ensure a constant supply of fresh water, an aquifer drill was used at a depth of around 280 meters under the platform.
Unfortunately, Rose Island’s brazen dream of sovereignty was a short-lived one. Incensed by Rosa’s defiance, the Italian government was swift in enacting retribution. On June 25, 1968—only two months after Rose Island had declared its independence—the Italian armed forces wrenched control of the micronation and destroyed it. By February of the following year, the island was completely obliterated, with hardly a trace of it left behind. Today, parts of its base and pylons can still be found languishing at the seabed.
While the short history of Rose Island may be one of celebrating freedom and civil disobedience, what is easy to forget is the creativity, imagination and sheer audacity it took to build Rose Island in the first place. After all, when director Sydney Sibilia asked Rosa why he would build a micronation in the Adriatic Sea, he was quick to retort, “Why not?”
When recreating the platform for the Netflix movie, film producer Matteo Rovere admitted that it took “a lot of money and hundreds of people.” In fact, it took nearly 18 months for the film producers to even figure out how to physically build the island. Additionally, Rovere erected the structure in the relative safety of an infinity pool in Malta, where the water was much shallower and less turbulent. In fact, the filmmakers had the luxury of first draining the water completely out of the pool so that construction could be carried out without any further challenges. It was only once the structure was built that the pool was refilled with water.
Rosa had none of these luxuries. That he was able to build his utopia with limited funding, only a dozen friends and workers in total, and in the middle of a sea more than half a century ago, is a testament to his engineering prowess. While it did take him nearly a decade to build the island (the work began in 1958), the techniques he employed were as enterprising as they were pioneering.
The Foundation of a Dream
Rosa and his team constructed the 400-square-meter platform entirely out of reinforced concrete that was then hoisted 26 meters above the seabed by nine pylons. Designed as a telescopic pillar system—which Rosa patented—the pylons required “arranging a structure on the beach and floating it offshore to a predetermined location.” A telescopic pillar system is comprised of concentric, modular tubes that are designed to slide into each other, which can then be stretched out or collapsed to the required length—much like an adjustable office chair, or the old telescopes from which the system derives its name. As such, the nine pylons that were to endure the immense weight of the 400-square-meter platform (a mere cubic meter of reinforced concrete can weigh an exorbitant 2300 kg or 5070 lb!) were assembled in their telescopic modules on the beach and then transported to their final location.
The ingenuity doesn’t end here, though.
Construction and transportation are often a huge cost for building projects out in the sea or ocean. For instance, even today, oil companies can run costs as high as $650 million when erecting oil rigs and can spend several years constructing them. With only a handful of workers and limited capital, Rosa expedited pylon transportation to the designated spot by leaving them hollow. What otherwise would have cost a fortune in transporting, was rendered much less labor- and cost-intensive because the hollow pylons would float easily on water, ensuring facilitated transport via motorboat.
Once the pylons were brought to their location, Rosa and his team would fill one end of the pylon with water, causing it to sink vertically into the seabed. Using this method, pylons would rivet into place through the sheer force of their own weight, rather like “self-tapping screws.” Steel tubes would then be inserted into the pylons and forced into the sea floor for further stability. The steel would also enhance the load-bearing capacity for the otherwise hollow pylons, not unlike steel rebars that are utilized in reinforced concrete.
Giorgio’s son, Lorenzo Rosa, summarizes the process as follows: “It was a modular system. He used these pipes—kind of like stilts—which were empty inside and then they would inject concrete in, which made them very stable and very strong to hold the island.”
Steel, while exemplary for bearing weight, can corrode easily when exposed to moisture and salinity. Even otherwise higher-grade steel is rendered untenable in such conditions. Today, to combat corrosion, the metal used on structures like oil rigs undergoes a cavalcade of coatings, dyes, and treatments. Roughly 50 years earlier, Rosa opted simply to fill the pylons with concrete once the steel tubes were inserted. By filling the once-hollow pylons with cement, not only was he reinforcing their structural integrity but also the steel rods inside them would no longer be exposed to any corrosive elements either.
As such, it is rather unsurprising to see why Rosa was able to patent such a unique construction process, since it highlighted a much cheaper way of building the system compared to oil rigs.
The Fortitude of a Dream
Perhaps ironically, the true test of Rose Island’s durability proved to be in its destruction. Once the Italian armed forces overtook the platform, they tried to disassemble it, which proved futile, prompting them to use explosives. So stalwart was the structure, however, that even a first round of dynamite proved insufficient.
A second attempt was then carried out with much more powerful explosives than before. This time, the structure was severely damaged but still refused to topple, remaining well-poised atop its nine sturdy pylons. All in all, an unbelievable 80 kilograms of dynamite had been detonated on the island—to no avail.
“In reality, they needed two very hard bombings of the island to destroy it. And after that, the government sent [my father] the bill for the war … we saw the receipt,” recalled Lorenzo.
It wasn’t until a proverbial act of God—in the form of a powerful storm—that Rose Island finally succumbed and collapsed back into the Adriatic Sea on February 26, 1969.
Today, divers often come across the remnants of Rose Island at the bottom of the sea. In 2009, a brick from the wreck was gifted by scuba divers to Lorenzo Rosa as a memento of his father’s dream.