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Pelli Tower in Seville: the dialectic of the renovation of urban
landscapes and heritage conservation
Alfonso Fernández Tabales & Rémy Knafou
commercial uses at the base and a restaurant at the
top.
The future completion in Seville of the tower called
"Torre Pelli" (named after its architect) or "Torre
Cajasol" (name of the sponsor) shows a major
debate in Europe about the difficult relationship in
the cities, between the conservation of their
traditional image and the emergence of new
architectural works with ability to modify the
image.
The relevance of this debate stems from the
confluence of several factors, among them the
uniqueness of the affected city, Seville, with a
remarkable historical and artistic heritage, a strong
presence in the collective imagination of the
Western world, and a growing productive
orientation towards tourism development. In
addition, city landscape presents a situation likely to
arouse controversy, with a horizontal skyline
dominated by the cathedral (the largest Gothic
church in the world) and, especially, the minaret of
La Giralda, the work of Islamic architecture topped
by a Renaissance bell tower (XVI century), with its
98 meters high is the identifying symbol of the city.
Pelli Tower and Guadalquivir (january 2013) –
© A. Fernández Tabales
Pelli Tower and La Giralda (may 2012) - © R. Knafou
This construction clearly alters the landscape
perspective, especially from the historical center
and has generated strong local debate. It is sure
that the visibility of the new building will depend on
the position and the point of view of the observer
(this is one of the central points of the controversy).
It is undeniable that will result a transformation of
the vision of the whole city from the roads and
more particularly from the banks of the
Guadalquivir, the traditional place of contemplation
of the urban landscape and touristic center (actually
upgrading by local authorities). For all these
reasons, a real debate takes place between those
who believe that the traditional urban landscape,
heritage identity element of the first order (we can
add also a tourism resource) is irretrievably altered,
and those who defend the idea that the city is a
living organism that must adapt to changes and
therefore that can be no urban landscapes
"untouchable", under penalty of fossilization.
In this urban context, real and symbolic, raised in
recent years the design of a high-rise building on
the grounds of the Universal Exhibition of 1992, in
the immediate vicinity of the historic core. This
project, after an international competition, is
assigned to the office of architect Cesar Pelli
(famous, among other works, as the author of the
Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur), which proposed
a tower, 180 meters high, with offices and
In this debate, the position of UNESCO appears as
an external factor: indeed, Seville has three
registered heritage buildings (Cathedral, Alcazar
and Archivo de Indias) and we can fear that the
impact on the landscape of the Pelli Tower on them
will lead to enter the city on the list of World
Heritage in Danger (and, ultimately, to its
decommissioning), with negative consequences on
its image in general and tourism resources in
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particular. Indeed, UNESCO had already called in
2009 to stop the work. But this recommendation
was ignored by local authorities and the companies.
Currently, UNESCO has not adopted a final
resolution, simply requested a new report on the
work and its impact on the registered buildings.
their visits always increase and contribute to an
economy in crisis. In addition, the Expo 1992 had
shown the ability to coexist here, on either bank of
the Guadalquivir, a historic center and a new city
inherited overturned towards new technologies.
But why should urban modernity illustrated
preferentially with towers, especially when they
have no originality? The question deserves to be
raised as much more than Seville (which already has
a surplus of unoccupied office floor for lack of
demand) does not show an economic dynamism
that justifies the need for a tower that, at present, it
risks mostly symbolize the ego of its creators, the
limits of democratic participation and effectiveness
of clientelism.
In parallel to this debate about heritage and
identity, we can discuss the issue of long-term costs
and benefits of tourism considering transformations
of the traditional image of historic cities. Indeed,
the defenders of the Pelli Tower stressed the
growth of economic activity and employment
related to construction and operation, however,
these analyzes do not take into account the true
cost of transformations induced by "modernization"
of the image of the city, which is currently its main
resource: its uniqueness and its aesthetic identity.
Actually one thing is certain: Andalusia began to
collect isolated towers; indeed, the Cajasol Tower in
Seville has just been added to the Laguna Tower in
El Ejido (completed in 2011), a city with a
population of 83 000 inhabitants, which is probably
the example of the highest skyscraper (105m) in a
small town.
Thus, in a European and global context in which
cities and urban landscapes become increasingly
similar and therefore monotonous after a
misunderstood modernization policies that actually
translate into banality and loss of diversity, tourism,
activity in which differentiation and uniqueness is a
key factor of production competitiveness of
destinations, becomes a valuable ally argument for
policy management of the entire urban landscape,
overcoming the usual scale centered on
conservation of individual monuments.
If the invasion of the plain by the "sea of plastic"
with greenhouses makes the fortune of the place
and may possibly justify the lack of space and the
need to build high, this wondered about the
existence of an "El Ejido syndrome" to build a tower
without requirement linked to urban land. The
future will show to what extent Seville will stand
out from the case of El Ejido.
There are more than 20 years, Cesar Pelli evoked
the responsibility of skyscrapers: “True skyscrapers
are charged with representational responsibilities
to act, by virtue of their towering height, as markers
of place, sculptors of the city silhouette and as
conveyors of public image” (Crilley, 1993, quoted by
McNeill D., 2005). Applying this analysis to his
current intervention in the urban landscape of
Seville, we can found more arguments to bring to
the opponents of the project... Especially because
the problem caused by this tower in Seville should
not be reduced to the question of the tension
between conservation and modernity.
It is absolutely clear that a city is a living organism,
and that a city as Seville can’t have only one
ambition to be a reservoir of past urban forms
intended for the sole satisfaction of tourists, though
Torre Laguna (El Ejido) under construction (december
2006) - © R. Knafou.
REFERENCES
McNeill D., 2005, 'Skyscraper Geography', Progress in Human Geography, 29(1), pp. 41-55.
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TO CITE THIS ARTICLE
Electronic reference:
Alfonso Fernández Tabales & Rémy Knafou, Pelli Tower in Seville: the dialectic of the renovation of urban
landscapes and heritage conservation, Via@, News in brief, posted on march the 20th, 2013.
URL : http://www.viatourismreview.net/Breve3_EN.php
AUTHORS
Alfonso Fernández Tabales
University of Seville
Rémy Knafou
University of Paris 1 - Panthéon-Sorbonne
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