José María de Cárdenas: “They thought the Setas would do for Seville what the Guggenheim did for Bilbao”

In the second instalment of his interview with ABC de Sevilla, José María de Cárdenas develops a thesis that runs through much of the studio’s work: no single isolated building transforms a city.

The Bilbao effect cannot be copied

“The Setas project came a decade after the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. Many cities took the view that having a magnet building would transform them”, he explains. “In Bilbao it almost did, but what transformed the city was not the building, it was the regeneration of the Nervión river. It took 25 years to remove the Altos Hornos steelworks, and the museum was the culmination of a change in the productive model.” He says something similar about the Expo: “the great impact was not the island, but the fact that infrastructure was built in a short period of time”.

Mixed-use complexes, not monocultures

On the large recovered complexes (the Atarazanas, the Artillería, Santa Clara) he points to an excess of public facilities in the plan with no one to develop them, and argues for a mix: “the Artillería is very large; everything fits: three streets, a public facility, commercial use, offices, a small hotel… and we would have created a far more attractive place than when we are monochrome”.

A Museo de Sevilla by the water

As for moving the Museo de Bellas Artes to the Rectorate building, he does not dislike the idea but does not see it as a priority. What he calls for is a Museo de Sevilla: “it should be linked to the river, because we have lived our whole history on the water”.

Interview by Javier Macías, published on 9 July 2023.