The Maquedano hat shop is located on the emblematic Sierpes street, on the corner of Rioja. The firm was founded in 1896 and the building in which it is located is a work of the architect José Gómez Millán from 1910.
It is, therefore, one of the oldest businesses within what is probably the most characteristic commercial hub of Seville. In addition, the titular family has managed to maintain its original style and spirit over time, so approaching the hat shop is like taking a little trip to Seville at the beginning of the 20th century.
From that time are some of the modernist jewels that the city conserves and in particular this property shows many of the features of this style. We see it, for example, in the decoration of the pilasters that frame its shop windows and in the rounded shapes of the wooden “pediments” on each one of them.
But this beautiful modernist building is made just at the time when it was beginning to move between this style and regionalism, in which many of the masterpieces of Sevillian architecture of the twentieth century were built.
Both styles largely share their original spirit, such as their strong aestheticism, which is manifested above all in the ornamental richness of the facades, or their reaction to the corset represented by the academicism and historicism prevailing in the 19th century.
The difference is that while modernism is more open to innovation in terms of materials, techniques and decorative forms, regionalism postulates a look to the past, to the architectural tradition considered vernacular in Andalusia, as the main source of inspiration for the new constructions.
Thus it seems to be glimpsed in the third body of this work, in which the sinuous forms of the modernist decoration are combined with a small gallery of semicircular arches on marble columns, one of the most present elements in Sevillian and Western architecture throughout the long of the time.
In short, it is a magnificent example of a certain moment in the history of art in the city, which fortunately has survived practically intact to this day.