The Plaza de España ("Spain Square", in English) is a

plaza A town square (or public square, urban square, city square or simply square), also called a plaza or piazza, is an open public space commonly found in the heart of a traditional town or city, and which is used for community gatherings. Rela ...

in the Parque de María Luisa (''

Maria Luisa Park Maria may refer to: People * Mary, mother of Jesus * Maria (given name), a popular given name in many languages Place names Extraterrestrial * 170 Maria, a Main belt S-type asteroid discovered in 1877 * Lunar maria (plural of ''mare''), large, ...

''), in

Seville Seville ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Spain, Spanish autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the Guadalquivir, River Guadalquivir, ...

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

. It was built in 1928 for the

Ibero-American Exposition of 1929 The Ibero-American Exposition of 1929 (; ) was a world's fair held in Seville, Spain, from 9 May 1929 until 21 June 1930. Countries in attendance of the exposition included: Portugal, the United States, Brazil, Uruguay, Mexico, Peru, Argentina, C ...

. It is a landmark example of Regionalism Architecture, mixing elements of the

Baroque Revival The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from the early 17th century until the 1750s. It followed Renaissance art and Mannerism and preceded the Rococo (in ...

Renaissance Revival Renaissance Revival architecture (sometimes referred to as "Neo-Renaissance") is a group of 19th-century architectural revival styles which were neither Greek Revival nor Gothic Revival but which instead drew inspiration from a wide range of ...

and

Moorish Revival Moorish Revival or Neo-Moorish is one of the exotic revival architectural styles that were adopted by architects of Europe and the Americas in the wake of Romanticism, Romanticist Orientalism. It reached the height of its popularity after the mi ...

(

Neo-Mudéjar Neo-Mudéjar is a type of Moorish Revival architecture practised in the Iberian Peninsula and to a far lesser extent in Ibero-America. This architectural movement emerged as a revival of Mudéjar style. It was an architectural trend of the late 19 ...

) styles of

Spanish architecture Spanish architecture refers to architecture in any area of what is now Spain, and by Spanish architects worldwide, influencing mainly areas of what was once part of the Spanish Empire. The term includes buildings which were constructed within t ...

. accessed 4/08/2010

History

Maria Luisa Park

In 1929, Seville hosted the Ibero-American Exposition

World's Fair A world's fair, also known as a universal exhibition, is a large global exhibition designed to showcase the achievements of nations. These exhibitions vary in character and are held in different parts of the world at a specific site for a perio ...

, located in the celebrated ''

'' (''Parque de María Luisa''). The park gardens were designed by Jean-Claude Nicolas Forestier. The entire southern end of the city was redeveloped into an expanse of gardens and grand boulevards. The centre of it is ''Parque de María Luisa'', designed in a "Moorish paradisical style", with a half mile of tiled fountains, pavilions, walls, ponds, benches, and exhedras; lush plantings of palms, orange trees, Mediterranean pines, and stylized flower beds. Numerous buildings were constructed in the park to provide spaces for the exhibition.

Plaza de España

The ''Plaza de España'', designed by Aníbal González, was a principal building built on the Maria Luisa Park's edge to showcase Spain's industry and technology exhibits. González combined a mix of 1920s

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...

and Spanish

, Spanish

and

styles. The ''Plaza de España'' complex is a huge half-circle; the buildings are accessible by four bridges over the moat, which represent the ancient kingdoms of Spain. In the centre is the Vicente Traver fountain. Many tiled alcoves were built around the plaza, each representing a different province of Spain. The Plaza's tiled Alcoves of the Provinces are frequent backdrops for visitors' portrait photographs, taken in their own home province. Each alcove is flanked by a pair of covered bookshelves, now used by visitors in the manner of a "

Little Free Library Little Free Library is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that promotes neighborhood book exchanges, usually in the form of a public bookcase. More than 150,000 public book exchanges are registered with the organization and branded as Little Free ...

". Each bookshelf often contains works with information about their province. Visitors have also donated favorite novels and other books for others to read. Today the buildings of the Plaza de España have been renovated and adapted for use as offices for government agencies. The central government departments, with sensitive adaptive redesign, are located within it. Toward the end of the park, the grandest mansions from the fair have been adapted as museums. The most distant museum contains the city's archaeology collections. The main exhibits are

Roman mosaics A Roman mosaic is a mosaic made during the Roman period, throughout the Roman Republic and later Empire. Mosaics were used in a variety of private and public buildings, on both floors and walls, though they competed with cheaper frescos for the l ...

and artefacts from nearby Italica. The Plaza de España has been used as a

filming location A filming location is a place where some or all of a film or television series is produced, instead of or in addition to using sets constructed on a movie studio backlot or soundstage. In filmmaking, a location is any place where a film crew wi ...

, including scenes for '' Lawrence of Arabia'' (1962). The building was used as a location in the ''Star Wars'' movie series '' Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones'' (2002) — in which it featured in exterior shots of the City of Theed on the Planet

Naboo The fictional universe of the ''Star Wars'' franchise features multiple planets and moons. While only the feature films and selected other works are considered canon to the franchise since the 2012 acquisition of Lucasfilm by The Walt Di ...

. It also featured in the 2012 film '' The Dictator''. The 2023 Netflix series, '' Kaos'', also featured scenes filmed at the Plaza. The plaza was used as a set for the video of

Simply Red Simply Red are an English soul music, soul and pop band formed in Manchester in 1985. Band leader, singer and songwriter Mick Hucknall was the only original member left by the time Simply Red initially disbanded in 2010. They have released thir ...

's song "

Something Got Me Started "Something Got Me Started" is a song by British soul and pop band Simply Red, released in September 1991 by East West Records as the first single from their fourth album, ''Stars'' (1991). It was released in several forms: a 7-inch single, a 1 ...

Restoration

From 2007 to 2010, the Seville City Council invested 9 million euros in the restoration of the Plaza de España. The objective was to recover the original monument as the architect, Aníbal González, conceived it. To restore it, the restoration team worked to recover pieces such as the ceramic streetlights, benches, and even pavements. In other cases, they created reproductions of elements based on photographs and postcards from the municipal newspaper library. Cefoarte and Diaz Cubero were some of the experts who worked in multidisciplinary teams to restore this complex to lively use.

Panoramics

References