The Sevilla Tower (Spanish: Torre Sevilla), known until 2015 as the Pelli Tower, is an office skyscraper in Seville, Spain. Its construction started in March 2008 and was completed in 2015. The stands at 180.5 metres (592 ft) tall and has 40 floors. It is an office building, with the entrance to the tower located off Odiel street. The tower is the tallest building in Andalusia and in the city of Seville, and the eighth tallest in Spain. It provides a panoramic view on all Seville. The tower is located in La Cartuja, the former zone of the Universal Exposition that took place in Seville between April and October 1992. It is located next to the river in an area being redeveloped since the early 2000s. The tower is flanked by two four story podium buildings also designed by César Pelli. The curved edges of the podium buildings define a plaza that opens on the north and south and narrows at the center, creating a pedestrian-scaled commercial street. The tower notably hosts a 5-star hotel, Eurostars Torre Sevilla, along with various offices.
History
Location In 2010, the works were awarded to a temporary joint venture of the construction company FCC (80%) and Inabensa (20%), a subsidiary of Abengoa. In the same year, the construction of the two podium buildings was awarded to the company Isolux Corsan. In 2013, CaixaBank awarded the completion works to the company Dragados. The façade has been installed by the company Inasus. The tower began housing offices in 2015, its adjoining shopping center opened in September 2018, and the hotel located on the upper floors of the tower was inaugurated one month later in October. The CaixaForum opened in 2017.
Project
The project's origins date back to the 1990s, during Soledad Becerril's term as mayor. In May 1999, the City Council of Seville approved an agreement between the City Council, the General Directorate of Heritage of the Regional Government of Andalusia, the Puerto Triana Company, and Agesa (the State Asset Management Company responsible for managing the assets of the 1992 Universal Exposition) to develop an urban project in the southern part of the Isla de La Cartuja. The proposal included the construction of a shopping center of almost 73,000 square meters, 15,000 square meters of offices and a hotel, and another 25,000 square meters for public facilities, in addition to the improvement of 181,579 square meters of public spaces. The Canadian company TrizecHahn expressed interest in carrying out the project and was to contribute 16 billion pesetas. The investors hired the Catalan architect Ricardo Bofill Leví for the project, who proposed a glass tower. The site was previously occupied by the Pavilion of Discoveries, which had been destroyed by fire in February 1992. When Agesa agreed to demolish the pavilion, the artist Eduardo Arroyo protested. In July 1999, Becerril lost the municipal elections and Alfredo Sánchez Monteseirín became mayor. The project was left unfinished, and in 2000 the company TrizecHahn abandoned the project. In 2001, the savings banks of Seville decided that Puerto Triana would be a good location for the future Caja Única (single savings bank) they intended to create. However, the political ties of the savings banks, coupled with the fact that the Mayor's office and the Urban Planning department belonged to different parties, and tensions with the Regional Ministry of Public Works of the Andalusian Government, broke the consensus on the project. The project was attempted again, this time with the Dutch multinational Rodamco managing the Puerto Triana company and with the mediation of the President of the Regional Government, José Rodríguez de la Borbolla. However, the company reduced the project's buildable area from 73,000 to 48,000 square meters, and Rodamco abandoned Puerto Triana in 2003 to make an investment in Valencia. In 2005, the demolition of the Discoveries Pavilion was agreed upon. With a new General Urban Development Plan (PGOU), approved on July 19, 2006, the city faced major architectural changes. In Puerto Triana, this fact was reflected in an invitation to five leading international firms to compete in an ideas competition. The main requirement was that the building should be a new icon for the city and, "preferably," should concentrate the building's volume into a single high-rise structure. The five architectural firms that submitted projects in November 2006 were: Pelli Clarke Pelli, by the Argentine architect César Pelli, which won the competition with its 180.5 m tower; Arquitectónica, by the Peruvian architect Bernardo Fort Brescia which was a finalist with a flat tower of 225 m; FOA-Zaera, by the Spaniard Alejandro Zaera-Polo, which came in third with a ceramic tower of 187 m; and the firms of the Japanese architect Arata Isozaki and the French firm Valode & Pistre, which did not pass the first round with towers of 220 and 120 meters respectively. The decision was made in January 2007. The General Urban Development Plan (PGOU) does not include projects proposing buildings taller than eleven or twelve stories in consolidated urban areas, and in unconsolidated urban areas, the construction of taller buildings depends on development plans. In this case, there are projects for three other skyscrapers in the city: one on the site of the former Cruzcampo factory, with 16 stories; another in the Hytasal area, with 28 stories; and a third next to the Bellavista boulevard, with 30 stories.
Name The skyscraper was unofficially called Torre Cajasol at first, and after the dissolution of that bank, Torre Pelli, because both the tower and the shopping center were designed by César Pelli. The construction project is now complete and was developed by the public limited company Puerto Triana, currently controlled by CaixaBank. The tower has two lower buildings to the north with a central street. The building's name in the architect's studio was always Torre Sevilla. In May 2015, CaixaBank officially named the skyscraper Torre Sevilla.
Design
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