Serras 5* Grand Luxury Hotel, Seville

Where Avenida de la Constitución meets Calle García de Vinuesa, opposite the monumental ensemble of the Cathedral and the Giralda, EDDEA has transformed the former headquarters of Banco Popular into Hotel Serras, a 43-room five-star grand luxury hotel for Retailcompany 2021, operated by Serras Collection.

Developed between 2022 and 2026 together with CBRE, the project turns the bank into a hotel through a close reading of the existing building: it makes the three Regionalist houses on the avenue legible once again and gives back to the city one of the most representative corners of its historic centre.

Three Regionalist houses facing the Cathedral

The building brings together two eras of the city. Along Avenida de la Constitución stand three Regionalist houses from the early twentieth century, crowned at the corner by the tower of the house Aníbal González designed for Álvaro Dávila, Marquis of Villamarta. On García de Vinuesa, the frontage belongs to the headquarters Banco Popular built at the end of the last century. The bank merged the plots, kept the front bay of the houses on the avenue and filled the interior with a vast triple-height hall closed beneath skylights and ringed by galleries and offices at different levels.

Drawing on a study of the historical records, a topographic survey and close dialogue with the city's Urban Planning Department (Gerencia de Urbanismo) and the Provincial Heritage Commission, EDDEA identified the elements that give structure to the new building: the listed façades, the tower, the double-height space behind the arches on the avenue and the brick walls with pilasters around the inner courtyard.

A hotel order for three different buildings

The complexity of the commission lay in reconciling three buildings whose façades each keep their own floor levels. The project is resolved in section, fitting the new structure precisely to the existing one wherever two buildings meet.

The strategy rests on two decisions. The courtyard drops to street level and becomes the heart of the hotel, open to the reception, the restaurant and the inward-facing rooms. The floor area of the former triple-height hall is rebuilt where the galleries once stood, so the hotel retains the original buildable floor area and organises each storey as a clear sequence of rooms aligned with the openings of the historic façade.

The project also recovers the line of the old party walls, which the bank had blurred when it merged the plots. This reading, shared with the Urban Planning Department and the Provincial Heritage Commission, makes the three houses recognisable from within and finds its clearest expression in the lobby.

From the double height on the avenue to the roof

The double-height space behind the arcade on the avenue is kept as the entrance hall and draws a visual line from the street through to the courtyard. The ground floor is given over entirely to the hotel, with the Fismuler restaurant opening onto both the avenue and García de Vinuesa. The first to third floors hold the 43 rooms, including three suites and two junior suites, while the basement houses the car park and the hotel's service areas.

On the roof, the concrete slab and skylights of the bank give way to a terrace with a pool and sun deck open to the monumental skyline. A restrained palette of pale paving, dark lacquered aluminium and planting settles the roof into the surroundings of the Bien de Interés Cultural, Spain's highest heritage designation. Building services are concealed behind the existing parapets, and the tiled roofs and the tower are preserved intact.

EDDEA has led the project from the feasibility study through to site supervision, in constant dialogue with the owner, the hotel operator and the interior design team.