Category Archives: architecture

l’armanaque de sevilla 2025

27 Wednesday Nov 2024

Posted by in architecture, art, sevilla, tapas bars

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calendar 25

Before lockdown 2020 my neighbour Alfredo Rodríguez was working at Barra Baja, one of my favourite restaurants in the city. Then of course everything stopped. But not Alfredo. He started creating a series of Sevilla tapas bar façades that he would sketch while out on the few walks we were allowed and then finish at home. This led to a whole other line of business for him that eventually became his new full time job. I have two of his limited prints at home, of Casa Eme and Casa Morales. Then Alfonso had the idea to make an annual Sevilla almanac with a selection his ever expanding collection of façades on each page.

This is the 2025 L’Armanaque de Sevilla, hot off the presses, and once again I have also picked one up for Deb and Paul like I did last year.

fixed it!

11 Monday Sep 2023

Posted by in architecture, history, sevilla

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balbuena huertas

Or rather, Paul fixed it for me. Remember my fabulous tasting menu at Balbuena y Huertas last week? I mentioned that the restaurant is housed in a rather splendid 5 Star GL boutique hotel (opening soon). However, when they renovated the building, which was built in 1924/25, they left up an antique ceramic tile ad that is, well, frankly racist. I always put a photo of the outside of bars and restaurants in my reviews but really didn’t want to lead with a pic of the offending tiles and so… Paul to the rescue.

In fact, Fiona and I had a talk with the chef about this after our meal the other day but he said that old tiles like this are protected and cannot be removed. And he’s right. But they can be covered up as long as the original tiles aren’t damaged (I’ve seen this done in various places around town). So we shall see.

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today’s grey with… pulleys?

12 Monday Dec 2022

Posted by in architecture, sevilla

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pulleys

Out for a walk this afternoon and noticed for the first time that the gables on one side of The House of My Dreams have these pulleys over the windows. It was suggested that they were used for lifting furniture up to the top floor, except you really couldn’t fit much through those windows. Also, although those rooms are clearly apartments now, back then they were probably used for storage (?) or servants quarters (??). This got me wondering about the history of this house, which is massive. Who was it built for? And most importantly, WHY did they install pulleys over those windows. Enquiring minds want to know.

gables