LA MAGDALENA DISTRICT
La Magdalena neighbourhood is located on the west of the historic centre of Sevilla. It takes its name from one of the most beautiful baroque churches of the city, Santa María Magdalena, catalogued as Bien de Interés Cultural (BIC) which is the legal form that guarantees the maximum level of protection conferred on a property in Spain, recognizing its high historical and architectural value.
The neighbourhood is close to the course of Guadalquivir River and to the old Jewish Quarter (today known as Santa Cruz) and has easy and quick access by car to a major street, Avenida Torneo.
Santa María Magdalena is not the only monumental building of the area. The Fine Arts Museum (Museo de Bellas Artes de Sevilla) set on the old Convento de la Merced, is catalogued too as Bien de Interés Cultural del Patrimonio Histórico Español. Located at the north limit of the district, it is a master piece of baroque architecture in Sevilla, besides being one of the more important museums in the country.
In addition to these BIC buildings, other catalogued houses from the XIX and XX centuries are also found in the neighbourhood: Palacio de Monsalves, modernist houses in Calle Alfonso XII (nº 27 and nº 29), Calle Almirante Ulloa nº4 and patio-house in Calle San Eloy nº44.
THE NEIGHBOURHOOD, ITS HISTORY
The oldest vestiges of urbanization found in La Magdalena district date back to the X century AD (the Caliphs times of Sevilla) in the area around Calle San Pablo. The area had been unsuitable for urban development submerged under the Gualdalquivir River. Only from century the VIII AD on, the river course slowly begins to retreat toward the west. From about mid twelfth century, by progressively retreating toward west, the riverbed of Guadalquivir finally becomes stable and ends up clearing the west land of the city. Therefore, La Magdalena district was firstly urbanized on an outside-wall area until high middle age, at a time when Iglesia del Salvador was the real city’s heart.
The fenced area of the city triples under the rule of Sultán Alí ibn Yúsuf (1083-1143), by the construction of a new defensive wall to seal the whole historic centre. It is now when La Magdalena district becomes incorporated within the new city enclosure, which was of such extend (about seven hectares) that it would not be filled up until nineteenth century.
The function of the new walls was not only sealing the city with defensive purposes; the enclosed lands stay now protected against flooding, an especially relevant fact for La Magdalena area. Nevertheless, it is known that a tremendous flood took place in 1200. The violent waters of the Guadalquivir destroyed six thousand houses and once the waters receded, more than seven hundred corpses appeared. Apparently, the walls did not resist. That’s probably why archaeologists haven’t found any remains of buildings of significant entity preceding XIV century in La Magdalena district.
The catholic King Fernando III conquers the city in 1248 and, as he did in Toledo, donates all the Mosques to the Sevilla Catholic Church. The city was articulated in “collaciones”; urban areas that develop around parish churches which organized civil and juridical life and give name to them. Thus, La Magdalena district becomes constituted by the newly founded Santa María Magdalena, San Vicente and San Miguel churches.
By then, Sevilla was a scattered city, especially outlying districts as La Magdalena. During the XIV and XV centuries the situation even gets worse because of the epidemic which devastates the city. Archaeologists highlight the low construction activity level of this zone.
It was not until the XVI century that the economy of Sevilla resurges, as its port takes advantage of the monopoly of trade with the newly conquered lands. It is now when construction activities begin to speed up in La Magdalena district, a neighbourhood whose economic and social life remained profoundly imprinted by its close vicinity to the river. Therefore, mostly seafarers and humble folks constituted the population of this district at the time. In La Magdalena neighbourhood, the most common residential typology was the middle-class patio-house inherited from the Muslim world. Many of them had a touch of luxury without being a “palace”.
THE MODERN ERA
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Sevilla maintains its medieval urban pattern with narrow and sinuous streets, most of them lacking in infrastructures, and still enclosed by the Muslim wall. This urban model was very far from the ambitious projects that were been implemented in Madrid and Barcelona; cities which by the time were laying the foundations for the contemporary city. Sevilla tried to follow the model of the big capital cities of the country, but the strong economic, political and social crisis which ravaged the city during the whole century made it impossible for many of the projects that were proposed to Town Hall Authorities to prosper.
This being the case, La Magdalena neighbourhood only marginally benefited from the expansion and street- alignment measures carried out in the XIX century in other cities, due essentially to the fact of being a strongly consolidated urban area and to its complicated variety. However, it was common at the time to clear zones for building squares in plots affected by the Law on Disentailment of the Ecclesiastical Property, as Plaza del Museo (1846), or Plaza de la Magdalena (1844) which became important urban focuses.
The arrival of the rail line to Sevilla was one of the most important events of the XIX century. Two different lines, two different management companies, two different locations: one from Córdoba and another from Cádiz. The first one affected especially La Magdalena neighbourhood since it was tangential to one of its borders (Plaza de Armas at the present) and the second one was set in Prado de San Sebastián. Both were relocated in 1987 to Santa Justa, which, from then on, became the major train station in Sevilla.
Over the last decades of the XIX century, a resolute urban transformation arises in Sevilla, mostly stimulated by the antipathy for the previous government. Building demolitions were frequent, as new modern materials started to be used: glass and cast steel (both for loading and decorative purposes). The demolition of the defensive doors and walls, dated back to XII century, was a most devastating mistake but, back then, they were considered an obstacle for urban development. However, it is well known that the speed with which the demolition works were carried out from 1868 on was politically motivated, as a reaction against the government of Queen Isabel II. The plots cleared after wall demolition works were occupied by residential blocks for middle-class, boarding houses and warehouses for storage of materials coming from the port and from the rail station.