The Plaza de España is a plaza

Plaza

Plaza is a Spanish word related to "field" which describes an open urban public space, such as a city square. All through Spanish America, the plaza mayor of each center of administration held three closely related institutions: the cathedral, the cabildo or administrative center, which might be...

 located in the Parque de María Luisa (Maria Luisa Park), in Seville

Seville

Seville is the artistic, historic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia and of the province of Seville. It is situated on the plain of the River Guadalquivir, with an average elevation of above sea level...

, Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 built in 1928 for the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929

Ibero-American Exposition of 1929

The Ibero-American Exposition of 1929 was a world's fair held in Seville, Spain, from the 9th of May 1929 until the 21st of June 1930. Countries in attendance of the exposition included: Portugal, The United States, Brazil, Uruguay, Mexico, Peru, Argentina, Chile, the Republic of Colombia, Cuba,...

. It is a landmark example of the Renaissance Revival style in Spanish architecture

Spanish architecture

Spanish architecture refers to architecture carried out in any area in what is now modern-day Spain, and by Spanish architects worldwide. The term includes buildings within the current geographical limits of Spain before this name was given to those territories...

.

Maria Luisa Park

In 1929 Seville hosted the Ibero-American Exposition World's Fair

World's Fair

World's fair, World fair, Universal Exposition, and World Expo are various large public exhibitions held in different parts of the world. The first Expo was held in The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London, United Kingdom, in 1851, under the title "Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All...

, located in the celebrated Maria Luisa Park

Maria Luisa Park

The Maria Luisa Park is a public park that stretches along the Guadalquivir River in Seville, Spain. It is Seville's principal green area.-History:...

(Parque de María Luisa). It was designed by Jean-Claude Nicolas Forestier

Jean-Claude Nicolas Forestier

Jean-Claude Nicolas Forestier was a French landscape architect, trained with Alphand and became conservateur of the promenades of Paris. He developed an arboretum at Vincennes and the gardens of the Champ-de-Mars below the Eifel Tower...

. The entire southern end of the city was redeveloped into an expanse of gardens and grand boulevards. The centre of it is Parque de María Luisa, a 'Moorish paradisical style' with a half mile of: tiled fountains, pavilions, walls, ponds, benches, and exhedras; lush plantings of palms, orange trees, Mediterranean pines, and stylized flower beds; and with vine hidden bowers. Numerous buildings were constructed in it for the exhibition.

Plaza de España

The Plaza de España, designed by Aníbal González

Aníbal González

Aníbal Segundo González Espinoza is a retired Chilean footballer who played as a forward during his career...

, was a principal building built on the Maria Luisa Park's edge to showcase Spain's industry and technology exhibits. González combined a mix of 1920s Art Deco

Art Deco

Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...

 and 'mock Mudejar', and Neo-Mudéjar

Neo-Mudéjar

The Neo-Mudéjar is an architectural movement which originated in Spain and emerged as a revival of the Mudéjar architecture. It appeared in the late 19th century in Madrid, and soon spread to other regions of the country. Such architects as Emilio Rodríguez Ayuso perceived the Mudéjar art as...

 styles. The Plaza de España complex is a huge half-circle with buildings continually running around the edge accessible over the moat by numerous beautiful bridges. In the centre is a large fountain. By the walls of the Plaza are many tiled alcoves, each representing a different province of Spain.

Today the Plaza de España mainly consists of Government buildings. The Seville Town Hall, with sensitive adaptive redesign, is located within it. The Plaza's tiled 'Alcoves of the Provinces' are backdrops for visitors portrait photographs, taken in their own home province's alcove. Towards the end of the park, the grandest mansions from the fair have been adapted as museums. The farthest contains the city's archaeology collections. The main exhibits are Roman mosaics and artefacts from nearby Italica.

The Plaza de España was used for location shooting some scenes in the films Lawrence of Arabia and Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones

Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones

Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones is a 2002 American epic space opera film directed by George Lucas and written by Lucas and Jonathan Hales. It is the fifth film to be released in the Star Wars saga and the second in terms of the series' internal chronology...

.

See also

• Spanish gardens
• Paradise garden
  Paradise garden
  The Paradise garden is a form of garden, originally just paradise, a word derived from the Median language, or Old Persian. Its original meaning was "a walled-in compound or garden"; from pairi and daeza or diz...
  
  
• Persian gardens
  Persian Gardens
  The tradition and style in the garden design of Persian gardens has influenced the design of gardens from Andalusia to India and beyond. The gardens of the Alhambra show the influence of Persian Garden philosophy and style in a Moorish Palace scale from the era of Al-Andalus in Spain...
  
  
• History of gardening
  History of gardening
  The history of ornamental gardening may be considered as aesthetic expressions of beauty through art and nature, a display of taste or style in civilized life, an expression of an individual's or culture's philosophy, and sometimes as a display of private status or national pride—in private...
  
  
• List of world's fairs

The Seville Town Hall is not located at the Plaza de España. The central government departments are.