OLD CONVENT OF EL CARMEN

This enormous building, which today occupies the Superior Conservatory of Music and the Superior School of Dramatic Art, was originally a Carmelite convent founded in 1358 and known as Casa Grande del Carmen. In the 19th century it became a barracks and remained in that use until relatively recently. This makes its architecture complex and difficult to analyze, with two main construction moments: the 16th and 17th centuries, when it was configured as a convent, and the 19th century, when it was transformed into a barracks.

The church remains of the old convent, rectangular in plan and with a dome over the presbytery, although it was also heavily modified in the 19th century. The tower, dating from the 17th century, has also been preserved, although it has no tops.

The main cloister is original, from the transition from the 16th to the 17th century, late-Renaissance or Mannerist style. It is porticoed on its lower floor, with semicircular arches that rest on pillars, decorated with Tuscan pilasters. On the upper floor, the molding of the large windows is finished off with a split pediment of clear Mannerist tradition.

The main façade constitutes the most important artistic contribution of the nineteenth-century reform. It has a marked neoclassical character, with a central doorway designed according to the prevailing academic models of the time, which determine the auction of the set by a classical entablature with its characteristic triangular pediment.

HOUSE OF OLEA

Inside, the house is articulated around a porticoed patio, with peralted arches with Plateresque decoration, which rest on marble columns. In the corner, as is usual in Sevillian mansions, a splendid staircase gives access to the second floor.

Some of the rooms in the medieval palace have been preserved, such as the so-called 'girls' room' and a square-shaped room used today as a chapel. The elements of greatest artistic value are preserved there, such as the tiled plinths with loop wheels, similar to those of the Alcázar, or the beautiful plasterwork with ataurique decoration, Kufic and scallop inscriptions. The octagonal wooden vault that originally covered the space was lost and today it has a contemporary cover that reproduces the shape of the original.

The upper floors are the result of the 19th century reform and have lounges decorated in English style.

SEVILLE CITY HALL

The building was originally attached to the Casa Grande de San Francisco convent, which originally occupied the entire area of Plaza Nueva and its adjacent blocks. The works began around 1527, coinciding with the stay of Emperor Charles V in the city to celebrate his marriage to Isabel of Portugal. Throughout the century, different architects succeeded one another in directing the works, such as Diego de Riaño, Juan Sánchez, Hernán Ruiz II or Benvenuto Tortello.

In the 19th century, following the disappearance of the San Francisco convent, the building was significantly expanded. It was then that the neoclassical façade facing Plaza Nueva was built, the work of Balbino Marrón (1861) and the extension of the façade towards Plaza de San Francisco, directed by Demetrio de los Ríos (1868).

Towards the outside, the exquisite Plateresque decoration of the part built in the 16th century stands out. We can see a complex iconographic program, full of mythological characters and references to Roman antiquity, mixed with the emblems of Carlos V. In this way, it was intended to exalt the city's past, relating it to the glorification of the figure of the emperor . In this way, the aim was to consolidate Seville as the most important city of that great empire that took shape during the 16th century.

On both sides of the arch that originally gave access to the Convent of San Francisco we see two niches with the figures of Hercules and Julius Caesar. Both characters are considered the mythological and historical founders of the city. The sculptures were added in 1854 one of the extensive restorations undertaken on the building's façade. They are the work of Vicente Hernández Couquet.

JARDÍN DE LAS DELICIAS (GARDEN OF DELIGHTS)

The Garden of Earthly Delights is one of the oldest public gardens in Seville. It was called Arjona's Garden of Earthly Delights, since it was set up during the mandate of the Seville Mayor José Manuel de Arjona y Cubas, between 1825 and 1835.

They were made within the general remodeling process of the eastern bank of the river. With the same objective, the wall that linked the Torres del Oro and Torres de la Plata crossing the current Paseo Colón was demolished, and the Jardines de Cristina were created in front of the Palacio de San Telmo.

Since their creation they have undergone various modifications. Artistically, the most significant occurred around 1864, when a series of Italian sculptures from the 18th century were brought in. They came from the Archiepiscopal Palace of Umbrete, which had suffered a fire in 1862. Some of them can still be seen in the garden, but most of them were replaced by replicas in 2006, while the originals were returned to Umbrete. For the arrangement of the sculptures in the palace, the Portuguese-born sculptor Cayetano de Acosta made a series of pedestals that we can also see today in the Garden.

The Garden gained great prominence as a result of the celebration of the Ibero-American Exhibition of 1929, since it became one of the landscaped spaces around which the event was held. In fact, it lost part of its original dimensions when the pavilions of Argentina and Guatemala were arranged to the North and that of Morocco to the South, pavilions that fortunately have survived to this day.