Pelli Tower, Sevilla

Seville is one of the most beautiful cities in Spain. Apart from its popular monuments, commonly known as the gothic Cathedral -one of the biggest in the world-, Spain square, María Luisa's Park and, of course, the Giralda, its charm is the traditional architecture which has been preserved for many years.

All the historical centre of the city is like a typical village of Andalucía, which means: white color, three floors at most, windows with artisanal grilles, narrow streets without cars, etc. It is a great pleasure to have a walk around San Julian's neighborhood, San Marcos's square or Feria Street.

Also, Triana, which may be the most popular neighborhood in the city -on the other side of the river- has that charm too. Especially the streets running parallel to the river, Betis, Pureza and Castilla are the soul of Triana. If you walk in these streets, you get the feeling that you are in a small village of the centre of Andalucía.

Now, at the end of Castilla Street, near "Cachorro's Bridge", Cajasol is building its news headquarters. This is a big project made by César Pelli, a very famous architect born in Argentina. The project includes a skyscraper that can be seen from all the points in the city. The charm that I talked about before, especially in this part of the city, disappears. Castilla is a long and narrow street, with small houses and nice trees. Two years ago you could walk in that street and at the bottom you could see the same type of city. But now -and the construction is not finish yet- the end of the street is a very tall building that seems to have fallen from the sky.

But this big difference between classic and modern architecture is not the only problem with the tower. There is an emotional problem too. When you know Seville and its people, you understand that they have some untouchable symbols in the city. Maybe the most important one is the Cathedral's tower, the "Giralda". It is the tower of the old mosque -except for the top-, built in the 12th Century. When the Christians conquered the city in 1248, they destroyed the mosque but not the tower, surely for its beauty, and built the top where there are 24 bells. The sculpture on the top, called "Giraldillo" was the biggest bronze sculpture of the Renaissance. 

The Giralda is 98,5 high, 104,1 including the "Giraldillo". It is the first and maybe the only reference of the city. It is the symbol of the people form Seville. There is no building in the city taller than the Giralda -Seville has more than one hundred churches, even the two towers of Spain Square, built in 1929 for the Latin American Exhibition, are lower than the Cathedral's tower. You can see the Giralda almost from any point of the city. The Cajasol's tower is 180,5 high, seventy six meters taller.

Many people consider that difference to be a very big contempt to their symbol. Firstly, because the Giralda, after eight hundred years, is not the visual reference of the city anymore. Then, because the bank does not need a very tall building for its headquarters, it has enough space to build a big, but not very tall, building. And finally because architecture can be very sensitive with the place where it is, and this project ignores the environment.

Another problem is UNESCO. Three monuments of the city were declared World Heritage Site by this organization: the Cathedral, the Alcazar and the Archive of the Indies. Unesco warned the very big impact caused by the tower on those three monuments, and studied to quit their statement. That problem is still unsolved.

Finally, we can speak about the quality of the tower. In my opinion, if we see only the project, without the environment, it is a very interesting building. But for me it is in the wrong place. Architecture must respect history and there are better places, but it is not a breaking tool between past and present. It is a question of respect to the past and the people’s emotions.

Alberto Muñoz

Artículo publicado en Skyline Magazine #25