Urban form and public performance: the Setas de Sevilla as the setting of 15-M demonstrations

Abstract

An analysis of the creation and transformation of the Plaza de la Encarnación in Seville, the last of the city’s projects for a  “plaza mayor”, serves here as a starting point for a contemporary approach to the phenomena of public space architecture. The Encarnación was structured from its very beginning, during the French rule of 1810–1812, as a "twofold" perimeter: a convex square enclosing a concave building, the Central Market. In this sense, it has rejected time and again the imposition of a general order or concept which it lacks, accepting only interventions that rely on its centrality value. The public competition for its total remodeling, won in 2004 and executed by German-based architecture studio J. Mayer H., put an end to decades of neglect in order to return to a morphology that, although in some aspects perpetuates the same nineteenth-century spatiality, has also provided—whether consciously or not—a potential for political assemblage. This contribution became evident during the 15-M demonstrations, continually held in the Plaza, showing the capacity of architecture to decisively transform the occupation of public space.