Seville as a combination of architectural styles and techniques of landscaping on the example of Alcazar Palace, Seville Cathedral and the most famous parks

Abstract

This article is dedicated to one of the largest Spanish cities - Seville, which for its long history has gone through not one architectural style. This is due to the fact that Seville was founded by the Phoenicians. It later became a Roman city, then an Arab city. In the thirteenth century, Seville was conquered by the Spanish king. Thus, the city was created as a combination of all these cultures in terms of techniques of urban planning and landscape design.

In more detail, we are talking about the outstanding architectural monuments of the Spanish city, which were created at the beginning of our era, and what changes they have made over time as a result of numerous reconstructions by orders of the then Spanish kings or deans of the Catholic Church (Alcazar Palace, Seville Cathedral and Giralda).

For example, Alcazar was an Arab fort before the reconstruction. It was built in the twelfth century in the classic Moorish style. But in the fourteenth century the fort was destroyed and a palace was erected in its place. The upper quarters are the royal residence now. The rest of the palace is open to visit, as are the gardens in the backyard.

As for Seville Cathedral, it was built on the site of an Arab mosque in the fifteenth century. From the original building remained the courtyard (now the Orange Garden), the Door of Forgiveness and Giralda, which used to be a minaret and is a bell tower now. The cathedral was built in the Castilian version of the Gothic. The outstanding feature of the cathedral is its huge size (140x76 meters) and 75 stained glass windows, which are recognized as the best in Europe.

If we talk about the famous parks of Seville, it is worth mentioning the park of Maria Louise, which was created in the early twentieth century and covers an area of ​​40 hectares.

The last section compares the city maps of 1590, 1848 and 2019 for changes in the green component of Seville. Looking at them, we can say that Seville has greatly increased in size due to the adjacent territories. So nowadays, there are not enough parks in the city.