PLAZA DE ESPANA- A Sunday In The Park
In 1929, Seville hosted the Ibero-American Exposition World’s Fair, located in the celebrated Maria Luisa Park (Parque de María Luisa). The entire southern end of the city was redeveloped into an expanse of gardens and grand boulevards.
The Plaza de España, was built on the Maria Luisa Park’s edge to showcase Spain’s industry and technology exhibits. A mix of 1920s Art Deco and Spanish Renaissance Revival, Spanish Baroque Revival and Neo-Mudéjar 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.
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 coll
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.
The 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.
