Ayuntamiento: A Town Hall with Two Faces
Why is it significant?
Begin in the wide, palm-lined Plaza Nueva, facing the long, columned front of the city hall, then walk around the building to the smaller square on the other side. You will feel as if you have walked around a building and through three hundred years.
Key Facts
| Place | Ayuntamiento: A Town Hall with Two Faces |
|---|---|
| Address | Plaza Nueva 1, 41001 Sevilla, Spain |
| Geo Coordinates | 37.38850, -5.99410 |
| Part of Walk | From Baroque Domes to Las Setas: Seville's Architecture Between Sierpes and Casa de Pilatos |
| Generated | Generated |
Begin in the wide, palm-lined Plaza Nueva, facing the long, columned front of the city hall, then walk around the building to the smaller square on the other side. You will feel as if you have walked around a building and through three hundred years.
The side facing Plaza Nueva is the newer one, finished in the second half of the nineteenth century in a calm, classical style. The square itself is newer still than it looks: until 1840 it was occupied by the enormous convent of San Francisco, which was demolished after the friars were expelled. The bronze horseman in the middle is King Ferdinand III, who took Seville in 1248.
Now the other side, on Plaza de San Francisco. Here the stone erupts into carved candelabra, shields, medallions, mythical creatures and tiny faces, the work of the architect Diego de Riaño from 1527. Spaniards call this style Plateresque, from platero, a silversmith, because the stone is worked as finely as a silver plate. Get close to the corner and look at the detail; it was meant to show that Seville, newly rich from the Americas, could match any city in Italy.
The square in front of it was the city's stage for six centuries. Bullfights, tournaments and royal celebrations took place here, but so did executions and the great public ceremonies of the Inquisition, the autos de fe, when the condemned were paraded and their sentences read before the crowds and the city's dignitaries. The balconies of these buildings were the best seats in town.
Today the square has a gentler role. In Holy Week the processions pass through it on their official route towards the cathedral, under the eyes of the authorities seated on special stands. From the northern side of Plaza de San Francisco, a narrow pedestrian street leads away to the north. Its name means serpents, and it is the most famous shopping street in Seville.