Seville, mayor wants to charge tourists a ticket to enter Plaza de España

Seville like Venice? In a Twitter post, Mayor José Luis Sanz announced plans to close and cordon off the Plaza de España by charging tourists to enter. At 50,000 square meters, Plaza de España is the symbol of Seville and one of the most visited destinations in Andalusia and Spain (3 million people in the city each year, which is almost 4 times its population). So visited that, as in Venice, attempts are made to limit its ’consumption’ with tourist quota systems and mechanisms to draw economic contributions from it as if it were a closed place. For like Venice, the iconic Plaza de España, an architectural jewel with the great complex built by architect Aníbal González for the 1929 Ibero-American Exposition formed by a majestic neo-Moorish semicircular structure framed by tall towers on both ends and four bridges over a moat (embellished with azulejos, the decorated ceramic tiles typical of the Iberian Peninsula, and often used as sets by Hollywood productions), it is an open-air museum.

Tickets would have a “non-dissuasive” fee, but let’s see how the mayor laid out the idea on Twitter by publishing the two-page spread in the Abc newspaper that anticipates the news, complete with a map and directions on future closures and access: “we are planning to close Plaza de España and charge tourists to fund its preservation and ensure its security. Of course, the monument will continue to be freely accessible and free for all Sevillians.”

Immediate controversy with the opposition criticizing “privatization” and, if anything, calling on the mayor to adopt the tourist tax “which the Popular Party,” the mayor’s party, “rejects.” To the criticism the first citizen of the Andalusian capital responds with a new post publishing a video of the plaza from which, in his intentions, would emerge the disorder that should be eliminated with the entrance fee, and with the sharing of an Abc interview with Aníbal González’s nephew who says he agrees with Sanchez.

The plaza, which, with its grandeur and beauty, is an obligatory romantic spot for every tourist with the typical walk around the perimeter with the buildings that show extraordinary mosaics of the various Spanish cities on their facades, could therefore only be accessible through the ticket for the obligatory artistic cultural route conceived by the municipal administration supported by the archiect’s family: “I have been asking for many years for the closure of the house to protect it. The square needs protection and surveillance. It is a more than justified measure. I don’t understand the opposite reaction when it comes to something that happens with other great monuments.”

Proceeds from the entrance fee will be used to improve conservation, security and the creation of a ceramics workshop school that will result in the maintenance of this monumental built for the 1929 Ibero-American Exposition by Aníbal González, the second most visited monument in Seville after the Cathedral and before the Alcázar. The monumental complex consists of the central building, intended primarily for administrative use, the public space defined by its facades and the front balustrade of the estuary, and the Avenida de Isabel La Católica.

Built, as anticipated, for the 1929 Exposition, it soon lost unity in relation to its ownership. That is why its maintenance and management is not carried out in an integrated manner. Currently, the central building is occupied by a large group of institutions, dependent on the State Administration, ranging from the Government Delegation to the Free Trade Zone, via the State Roads Demarcation or the General Secretariat of Prison Institutions. For its part, Abc explains, the Seville City Council owns the open space of the square, from the ceramic benches representing the provinces to the front balustrade, including the estuary and Avenida de Isabel La Católica.

The municipality and state authorities would sign an agreement for unified management to better act in terms of maintenance and enhancement. In recent years alone, more than 10 million euros have been spent on the maintenance of the monumental complex. The municipality stresses how so far it has “not drawn from the Plaza de España all the possible benefits it can offer,” referring to long-term effect on the average number of overnight stays, with the stated goal of recovering the spirit of a space of culture and recreation for which it was conceived by Aníbal González, “It was not built for the headquarters of administrative offices.”

The municipality’s plan, as Abc explains, includes an agreement with the government to have two new exhibition spaces dedicated to the Exposition of the 29th, located in each of the spaces located on the side stairs, that is, on the first and second floors of the interior of the gates of Navarre and Aragon; as well as an elevator to the North Tower to offer a spectacular panoramic view, an attraction that existed at the Ibero-American Exposition.

Full support for the project from Aníbal González’s grandson, who goes by the same name, who speaks of the constant degradation experienced in the plaza with “bottles thrown against the balustrade, pieces of pottery taken away, and a drunk English soccer fan diving into the pond. There are many reasons to take measures to protect this monument. There is no other choice.”

Seville, mayor wants to charge tourists a ticket to enter Plaza de España

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