A good fit: making legacy projects more local

Spain, 1929. In the shadow of an unfortunate war with America - so disastrous they called it “The Disaster” – the country entered the waning years of its second-to-last dictatorship. Facing a dwindling sense of international relevance and the opening scenes of the Great Depression, it was hardly the brightest time for an international expo. And yet, Spain’s hosting of the Ibero-American Exposition was the most successful the country had seen since Barcelona’s turn at the Universal in 1888.

The space built in Seville for the 1929 Ibero-American Exposition was designed as a synthesis of all things Spanish and the legacy of Spanish communities in the Americas; it was composed in no small part of two central spaces: the Plaza de España, a testament to the history of Spain, and the Parque Maria Luisa, a series of elaborate pergolas and fountains scattered among American flora.

The building style of the Plaza de España – which you might recognise from its appearances in Lawrence of Arabia, The Dictator, or – god forbid – the Phantom Menace, allowed it to seamlessly slide into the architectural context of Seville’s medieval core; this style, neo-mudejar, veils the age of this building, its mosaics and spires enabling a quiet contiguity with the city at large. The plaza now jostles with the cathedral to be Seville’s symbolic structure; in the meantime, it serves as a popular destination for wedding photos, free flamenco, and notably understated bouts of punting.

What’s more, the Plaza de España isn’t just a tourist attraction; it also houses a range of government offices, such as the immigration office and the regional military. This means it’s not just a building of high regard, but also of utility.

Meanwhile, the Parque Maria Luisa is a well preserved and thoughtfully planned series of gardens, not unlike an Iberian Cliveden. There’s an “island of birds” (the park is filled to the brim with exotic aviary), a local market, two museums, an amateur theatre, and so on.

Like the plaza, the park is almost always buzzing. There are people walking, reading, exercising, picnicking, riding through on bike, buggy, or horse-drawn cart. Much like many of London’s royal parks, the Parque Maria Luisa was built on the city’s outskirts before other structures were added around it; the space encouraged local development, as all good legacy projects should.

The 1929 Exposition is a testament to planning with the local in mind. Not only did the site incorporate Andalusian history into its construction, but it was designed to offer multiple amenities to the entire city of Seville after the Exposition ended – services the city previously lacked. The space also embraced a pedestrian-centric design and refused to admit motor vehicles, offering sanctuary from the boulevards that surrounded it without cutting itself off.

Unfortunately, this legacy project business is notoriously easy to get wrong. In what might at first glance appear to be a bout of sadism, Seville also houses one of the worst examples of a legacy project, that largely failed to imitate its predecessor even when it consciously tried to: this is the 1992 Universal Exposition.

In 1992, Spain invited countries from all over the world to pitch their pavilions - and their ideas - on the island over the river from Seville. This was an era of globalisation for Spain, eager to disassociate itself from dictatorship and open itself up to the world. However, the new expo took the occasional cue from ’29: a garden of American wildlife was planted, quiet references were made to Spain’s colonial past, and a giant egg with a statue of Columbus in it was built on the edge of town. I am not joking.

At the time, the ’92 Expo, now called La Cartuja, was heralded as a success; it garnered many more visitors than the noted flop that was the previous Expo held in Hamburg. Its architecture, too, was what people of the time might have called ‘ambitious’ or ‘ground-breaking’. What remains of the Expo today shows it for what it is: a series of blocky, pseudo-modernist warehouses laid out on roads too wide and surrounded by outrageously empty pavements. Half of La Cartuja has been converted to an industrial estate; the other half lies in ruin, its streets forward-planned for a legacy that never came. As a pedestrian, the site is a mess of roads gated off for no obvious reason and desolate car parks that are a strain to cross.

The development across the river did offer some arbitrary external benefits, including the modernisation of regional airports and highways. But this is to say nothing of the impact of the Expo itself; living in the Plaza de España’s shadow, it fails on every count. You could point to new developments in the area, like the Isla Magica theme park or Sevilla Tower, but the former only symbolises the ‘fencing off’ of public spaces, while the latter put the World Heritage status of Seville’s old town at risk because of its impact on the skyline.

The fact of the matter is that the Expos of ’92 and ’29 differ fundamentally in how they approached their legacy. In 1929, the Expo was condensed, refurbished and opened up to enable locals to enjoy it as much as possible. While its maintenance likely costs a pretty penny, its value is indubitable. In 1992, the sheer distance of the site from the city centre proper meant it could only really be accessed by car or a solitary bus route; even then, visitors to La Cartuja would find a sparsely spread range of attractions presented in an unfriendly manner, scattered at unwelcoming distances for pedestrians.

Moreover, La Cartuja’s attractions are just as emotionally dislocated as they are geographically; while the Plaza de España wears culture on its sleeve, not one new development over the river does the same, preferring the innovative modernist style that was au fait at the time. The appeal of such a style is debatable, but what isn’t is whether it resonates with locals or invites people in. Perhaps the clearest distinction between the two expos is their ambitions; 1929 was aimed at the Hispanic sphere, while 1992 was worldwide. It might be that an eagerness to impress global watchers with modernist and ambitious developments was what drove La Cartuja’s planners to ruin; listening to voices from beyond led them to forget themselves.

Hilariously, the two opposite examples of urban planning provided by Seville’s duality of expos manage to exemplify poles of good and bad street development; on one hand, wide roads with flat buildings and little tree cover, on the other, thin streets with welcoming buildings and plenty of trees. We know the latter is kinder to communities, but it would be wrong to end the analysis there. The Plaza de España is heavily culturally embedded, indebted to a Spanish ideal. This is part of why it is so popular with tourists and locals alike; Spaniards from all around visit to find their province’s portal while nationals admire the tribute to Moorish architecture. Meanwhile, La Cartuja’s globalism hamstrings its reach, not least because most of the foreign pavilions were demolished after the fact; the buildings that remain do not speak to Spain and therefore only hold appeal for their novelty – but this novelty is gauche, rather than awe-inspiring. With hindsight, only one of these expos has aged well.

A monument to a period of macabre Spanish history has stood the test of time far better than one that was supposed to symbolise the country’s internationalisation and openness. Being in the world’s view isn’t just a boon for the visitors and the public coffers; it ought to be a boon for the people, too; the people who live with the legacy each and every day. The conscious choice that developers either acknowledge or ignore is as simple as this: do citizens matter?