Permanence, Adaptation or Reuse: Transformations in the convents of the city of Seville

Abstract The rich history of the city of Seville has provided it a wide architectural heritage, which is necessary to preserve. In the early twentieth century, Spain began to express concern about the preservation of its historical legacy, trying to protect historical and artistic monuments. However, it was not until the arrival of the democratic political system that this awareness of preservation took true precedence over other matters. In this temporal context, the young Andalusian Government was looking for definitive venues for the new institutions, with the target of the upcoming Universal Exhibition of Seville in 1992. The recognized architect Guillermo Vázquez Consuegra was commissioned to study a range of buildings in the city susceptible of hosting new uses, published in the book “Cien Edificios de Sevilla, susceptibles de reutilización para usos institucionales”. This work has become a reference catalogue of Sevillian-built heritage. Looking at the one hundred (100) buildings studied there, all of a certain scale in the city, 18 are convents or exconvents. This paper will try to find out the destiny of these buildings themselves as monastic heritage, but also in relationship to other types of heritages.


Introduction
The rich history of the city of Seville has provided it a wide architectural heritage, which is necessary to preserve.In the early twentieth century, Spain began to express concern about the preservation of its historical legacy, trying to protect historical and artistic monuments.However, it was not until the arrival of the democratic political system when this awareness of preservation takes true precedence over other matters, concept materialized in the Law 16/1985 of Spanish Historical Heritage.
In this temporal context, the young Andalusian Government was looking for definitive venues for the new institutions, with the target of the upcoming Universal Exhibition of Seville in 1992.The recognized architect Guillermo Vázquez Consuegra was commissioned to study a range of buildings in the city susceptible of hosting new uses.The result was the book "Cien Edificios de Sevilla, susceptibles de reutilización para usos institucionales", published in 1986.This work has become a reference catalogue of Sevillian-built heritage, as it researched on a significant sample of the evolution of the andalusian heritage in the last 30 years [1].
Looking at the one hundred (100) buildings studied there, all of a certain scale in the city, 18 are convents or ex-convents.This paper will try to find out the destiny of these buildings themselves as monastic heritage, but also in relationship to other types of heritages [2].

The valuable architectural heritage of Seville and the preservation and/or transformation processes
In this paper we will focus on the analysis of the buildings used for religious life, convents or monasteries [3], which is a type that has a significant representation in the one hundred buildings in Seville.We are taking them as a starting point and we find a combination of the two alternatives that we will present: the preservation or the transformation of the use.The proposal of using most of the listed buildings in the book for institutional uses has a special meaning, from our point of view, with also those coming from a private residential use, because this is the area in which public institutions can better introduce new uses, and even, to solve deficiencies or defects in the conservation of the original owners.This explains that the majority of the properties selected by Vázquez Consuegra were born with a residential use (63%) and it was in this group where in 1986 you could clearly see the evolution into disuse or abandonment of those large houses.
The public administrations here, understood that they had to act preferentially, and so they did; today, we have managed to end up with the poor state of almost all those diagnosed buildings, with little exceptions -a 7% -that have been crippled or abandoned by the economic crisis.The study of the different types and its evolution in terms of use are schematically presented below (Figure 1).
However, not all buildings are similarly able to be reused, which could be a degradation of the historical heritage memory [4].Not all types of buildings have the same tolerance or support transformations of use without losing the essence of what once was, and that has reached our days with a heritage value.It is therefore debatable whether providing an institutional use different from the original in some buildings [5], which could be respected when it is objectively and socially justified with an interest in the maintenance of its function.

The high rate of sevillian convents that have achieved the continuity of their historical usage
From a heritage perspective, the continuity of historical use in a building tells more about the success of the social and architectural function which was designed for such construction in its day.Eighteen of the buildings analysed by Vázquez Consuegra were created as convents or monasteries of closing.Eleven of them are still dedicated daily to devotional use today, which is a significant issue in relative terms, indicating that their original destination, if it has managed to resist the passage of time, has consolidated an architectural typology that combines form, function and symbolism [6].
The system of convents in Seville was born in the thirteenth century, after the reconquest by the Christian troops of Ferdinand III of Castile, generating an urban pattern which is still visible in the historical centre and also in its surroundings [7].The eleven female monasteries which continue to function as part of that religious system are the convents of The Holy Spirit (Espíritu Santo), The Mother of God (Madre de Dios), Saint Joseph of the Carmelite Order (San José del Carmen), Saint Leander (San Leandro), Saint Clemence (San Clemente), Saint Agnes (Santa Inés), Saint Paula (Santa Paula), Saint Rosalind (Santa Rosalía), The Visitation of Mary (La Visitación de Santa María o Las Salesas) and Saint Mary of Jesus (Santa María de Jesús).They would have to add the convent of Saint Elizabeth (Santa Isabel), but it has lost its condition of life community in closing, maintains its religious use as a community of active life.
Left out of this group of privileged, seven ex-convents whose history we are going to analyse, presented according to the order number of the publication: the Lady of Mount Carmel (El Carmen) (63), Spanish-Cuban Institute or Convent of our Lady of Good Remedies (Instituto Hispano-Cubano o Nuestra Señora de los Remedios) (67), The Charterhouse (La Cartuja) (68), the Franciscan Third Order (Los Terceros) (69), Saint Ermengild (San Hermenegildo) (70) and Saint Mary of the Kings (Santa María de los Reyes) (95).Saint Claire (Santa Clara), number 91 on the list, is still 'alive' convent, because as we will see later today remains the home and his community of the Franciscan clarist sisters has moved to the subsidiary Saint Mary of Jesus.General information about the convents from the Patrimonio Inmueble Andaluz database (http://www.iaph.es/patrimonio-inmueble-andalucia/) It is not surprising, in a city like Seville, one of the major pillars of the monastic cities in Europe, as well as Lisbon and Rome, that a high percentage of such spaces preserved over time its dedication to religious life.Obviously, the very strong religious component of the Spanish society of other times has been declining.But as we know, the sharp decline in religious vocations that could have led to the loss of the devotional use is mitigated by the new arrival of immigrants which now represent a high percentage of sisters in sevillian convents.In any case, among the factors that may have influenced the extension of the original use of the convents it should be noted the non-profit character of the religious congregations owners, which favours that speculative interests in some areas of the city centre does not come into play [8].

Monasteries and Convents subject to adaptation for other uses
Out of over one hundred buildings of Seville consecrated to religious use, only 16 to date, have remained as closing throughout history [9].Most of the monasteries have their period of maximum religious and architectural splendour between the 16 th and 18 th centuries in the so-called Sevillian Baroque.However, there are a series of events in the 19 th century that will decline the use of these buildings, and some may not recover to adverse circumstances.With the French Invasion (1810-12), the convent of the Incarnation is lost and becomes a market, as well as other monasteries become military buildings or jails (the Populi (El Pópulo), the Lady of Mount Carmel (El Carmen), the Franciscan Third Order (Los Terceros)) during the years of the War of Independence, returning later to be religious buildings until the General Secularization Law of religious orders promoted by Mendizábal's Law of Disentailement of the Ecclesiastical property (Desamortización de Mendizábal), ends with the religious life of the majority of these buildings being destroyed or sold, transforming into other civilian uses.
In particular, within the catalogue of the hundred buildings, we found seven (7) who having been convent houses throughout its history (six since its inception and one more converted convent from an initial residential use) have become partially or completely transformed today into other uses.We will discuss the main aspects of these transformations to try to draw conclusions about the contribution of the processes of rehabilitation and reuse of the monastic heritage conservation in optimal conditions [10].

The Royal Monastery of Saint Claire (El Real Monasterio de Santa Clara)
Saint Claire is the second female convent house based in the city of Seville after their conquest to the Muslims, first of the foundations of the franciscan clarist sisters in the city, followed by the Convents of Saint Agnes and Saint Mary of Jesus [11].There are documents about the location of these religious sisters in the current monastery as early as 1289, year in which Sancho IV of Castile makes a donation to the nuns which were living there, in the houses and gardens of the Palace of her uncle, the Infant Don Fadrique (Frederick).
The convent is located in the district of Saint Lawrence (San Lorenzo), originally due to occupy the entire block, but has been declining its extension progressively, to currently occupy only the centre of the same.The perimeter has been sold or acquired gradually, lacking Saint Claire practically to have facade to the street that gives it its name.The tower of Don Fadrique (1252) is inside of the convent and it is the only visible remain of the Palace of the Infant of the same name, which was the germ of the convent.The sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century saw the most intense period in the construction of the present monastery, dating its main cloister in the year 1532.
At the beginning of the twenties of the last century, the city council bought a great part of the garden that surrounded the tower and landscaping it to locate a part of the archaeological museum.The large piece of the bedroom for school use is also fragmented into two parts.In 1986 the Andalusian Culture Department carried out the refurbishment of the church and main cloister.
Unfortunately in 1998 and after more than eight centuries of continuous life in closing, the last sisters were forced to leave the monastery and the community is moved to the convent of Saint Mary of Jesus of the same order.The Council by agreement with the Archbishopric of Seville acquired it and undertakes rehabilitation works to accommodate cultural uses, although they have not been finished completely due to lack of budget.From 2005 to 2011, they returned to undertake the restoration, and it is currently open partially to the public as a cultural centre hosting exhibitions, concerts, plays and conferences.We believe that the loss of its value in use as a convent, of this building declared Monument in 1968, is one the most seri-ous of the convents transformations in Seville of the twentieth century.

Convent of Saint Mary of Mount Carmel (Convento de Santa María del Carmen)
Initially belonging to the so-called convent of the Carmelites founded in 1358, the current building, located at the Baños Street in Saint Vincent's neighbourhood (San Vicente), began to build in 1428, by a community of men, although the Church was not inaugurated until 1609.He has had very different uses, from the convent, which met its splendour time in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, until its use as headquarters of infantry in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries [12].It was a convent until 1810, when the French evicted the Carmelites, turning the Church into stables and suffering great damage.The monks returned again in 1815 to be newly evicted in 1835 after Mendizábal's Law of Disentailement of the Ecclesiastical property, although they managed to retain part of the temple in use with the Sacramental Brotherhood of the Seven Last Words (Hermandad Sacramental de las Siete Palabras).However, after two temporary closures, in the revolution of 1868 the revolutionary side seized what was left of the old convent definitely throwing out and making it headquarters of the army until 1978, which is abandoned by the militaries.
In 1983 it was purchased by the City Council of Seville, who granted it to the Andalusian Government for the division (convent and novitiate) and restoration in 1990 giving it a new life as a conservatory of music and the school of dramatic arts.It was declared a monument in 1994.

Monastery or Charterhouse of Saint Mary of the Caves (Monasterio de Santa María de las Cuevas o La Cartuja)
The men monastery of Saint Mary of the Caves was founded in 1400 by the order of the Carthusians monks, on the right bank of the Guadalquivir river, in the so-called neighbourhood of Saint Anne (Santa Ana).The original church was built in 1500, as well as the perimeter wall closing a very large space inside.Over the following centuries they build and refurbish more buildings repairing the whole monastery, due to the damage caused by the frequent flooding of the Guadalquivir river, reaching the major reform in the eighteenth century, moving the main door away from the river, and arose a new close perimeter and almost completely rebuilding the chapel of the Lady Source: Council of Seville. of the Caves or also called the Outer Chapel (Capilla de Afuera) [13].
The French invasion produced major disasters in the monastery to be terribly looted and turned into barracks.In 1816, the monks returned to be definitely expelled later in secularization of 1835.In 1838, Pickman, an English merchant who already lived in Seville, leading his house of crockery and foreign glassware, asked for giving him up the monastery and it was granted by Royal Decree the following year.When the earthenware factory moved, the building was abandoned, threatened and subjected to a progressive deterioration of uncontrolled ruin.Works of restoration and consolidation of the essential core of the monastery were performed from 1971 to 1978.
Projects of restoration and refurbishment and previous analyses were done from 1983 to 1986, but it was not until 1987 when the Andalusian Culture Department finally arranged four partial projects to different architects: outside chapel, monastic area, manufacturing area (precisely its intervention is the work of Guillermo Vázquez Consuegra, author of the book of one hundred buildings in Seville) and finally the close and the gardens.The Charterhouse has become the biggest cultural container hosting different institutions.It was the Royal Pavilion during the international exposition of 1992, and it is now headquar-ters of the Andalusian Institute of historical heritage, located in the area of industrial buildings, of the Andalusian International University in Seville, and of the Andalusian Centre of Contemporary Art (CAAC), in the old monastic area.

Convent of Our Lady of Good Remedies (Convento de Nuestra Señora de los Remedios)
The old convent of The Good Remedies, of Malate brothers, Barefoot Carmelites, is located on the right bank of the Guadalquivir river, in the Saint Anne (Santa Ana) neighbourhood in Cuba Square.The monastery was founded in 1580 at the initiative of the Barefoot Carmelites order next to an old hermitage there which is was built in the year 1540.The risk of frequent floods and the ruined situation of the building forced them to leave it, deciding then to build another monastery in the same place, but rather further away from the shore of the river.The works of the new convent began in 1632, ending the church in 1700.With the French invasion in 1810, the community leaves the building until the year 1814 when they come back to the convent.In 1836, with the confiscation measures, the friars are Source: Andalusian Government permanently ex-cloistered, passing the convent into secular hands and being used as a wood warehouse, housing, etc., and around 1840 most of the dependencies of the convent were demolished with the exception of the Church and some isolated elements [14].
The Church is all that remains of the primitive convent, being subsequently renovated in the eighteenth and twentieth centuries.The temple has seen over the years a number of buildings have come to juxtapose to the original core.Some of them come from the refurbishment of the convent for a new use, as the headquarters of the Spanish-Cuban Institute of culture in 1928-1929, endowing it with new facades and a new urban dimension.
In 1999, the building became home to the Carriages Museum of the city, function that currently continues to play sharing space with the library of the Institute.Although, the only thing that remains of the original construction, is the Church.It was declared a monument in 1931.

Convent or School of Saint Ermengild (Convento o Colegio de San Hermenegildo)
The convent and school of males of Saint Ermengild founded in the year 1580 by the Society of Jesus (Compañía de Jesús), is currently only its Church.This school's "rich kids" was the latest in a series of schools that had the Society of Jesus in Seville at the Amor Street, and be-ginning with college scholarships for "poor children".The construction of the building concluded in 1620, which orients itself on the Baroque style interior decoration but still Mannerist traces.After the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spain in 1767, it maintained its didactic function until nine years later; the whole convent became 'Toribios children' seminar, orphanage and reformatory of young orphans.In 1798, it became host to one of the congregations of the Christ school [15].As it is usual in the male monasteries, the tumultuous nineteenth century brought war aspects to the convent, only that in this case in a different way.In 1802 was the seat of an artillery regiment, and from 1823, date in which destroyed part of the building, it was the infantry barracks of the Duke.In this year, the building hosted the headquar- The City Council decided to refurbish the building in 1981, improving the State of the property.In 1985, was the seat of the Parliament of Andalusia during the first, second and part of the third legislature (1992).He returned to be abandoned, until in 1995, he was refurbished again for cul-tural use hosting conferences and permanent exhibitions.However, the poor state of conservation caused its closure in 2006, despite having been restored at the beginning of the 1980s.The City Council is currently in full search for private funding to restore it.There is a project on the table to transfer the property to the Council of brotherhoods of Seville for their headquarters, and it was declared a monument in 1959.

Convent of the Franciscan Third Order or Our Lady of Consolation (Convento de los Padres Terceros o de Nuestra Señora de Consolación)
The old men convent of the Franciscan Third Order is a complex of buildings located between the Ponce de León Square and Sol Street, in Saint Catherine neighbourhood (Santa Catalina).Religious arrived in Seville for the second time in 1602, with its target of the founding a convent and soon began construction work, developing the works throughout the seventeenth century, and ending to 1697 [16].
Like other convent houses in Seville, it suffered the consequences of the French invasion, being the friars expelled in 1810 for the reuse of the building as a barracks.In 1811, the Augustinian nuns from the convent of the Incarnation, which was demolished to build a market, settled temporarily in its dependencies.The friars came back in 1819 to stay here until the Mendizábal's Law of Disentailement of the Ecclesiastical property of 1835, giving its dependencies to the army creating so-called Transit Headquarters.
The convent was purchased in 1952 by the order of Saint Joseph of Calasanz, settling the well-known School of the Piarists, working until 1975.That year it was sold to a real estate company that sought to tear down it and build housing.The building was saved by the bankruptcy of the company owner, being acquired by the Municipal Company of water (EMASESA), which carried out the restoration and refurbishment of the building complex.
The works finished at the end of the twentieth century, affected the convent space.Currently, only the church known as the Church of Our Lady of Consolation maintains religious use, transferred in 1973 to the brotherhood of the sacred dinner, and the rest of the old Convent is now being used as offices of EMASESA.It was declared a monument in 2002.

Convent of Saint Mary of the Kings (Convento de Santa María de los Reyes)
The old Dominic women convent of Saint Mary of the Kings, located in Santiago Street, district of the same name, is based on what originally were a few major houses belonging to the aristocracy around 1607. Between 1628 and 1635 the complex hosted the Court of the Holy Office of Seville.Before the abandonment of their owners, who moved to the main Court, in 1635 the Barefoot Dominicans friars of the convent of Saint Mary of the Kings bought the houses, there remained until 1976 that moved and combined with the community of Saint Mary the Royal.This religious use is which has prevailed in the building.The building has undergone two expansions: that of the eighteenth century, when the new church and cloister was built and the early nineteenth century, when it was added the new novitiate to the north part of the building.It remained abandoned until 1986, when the Andalusian Government took matters into it [17].
At the beginning of the 1990s, after a violent fire, the Church, the choir and the compass of the convent were restored using them as offices and workshops of the Administration hosting cultural and training activities, such as exhibitions and conferences related to architecture and urban planning.Currently, it is being refurbished once again.They will undertake new projects that include the ancient cloister, adjoining rooms and old gardens preparing the set for use by the general public and for cultural activities.

Overall analysis of the Processed Convents
There is a table summary below, showing the most important data relating to the convents that have undergone transformation of use.We can observe how the proposal of the author Vázquez Consuegra to reuse these buildings for institutional uses has been conducted, whether the public administration offices, teaching spaces, use that arises in most cases in the refurbishment of the monastic heritage, multifunctional cultural spaces, hosting exhibition rooms, conferences, congresses, theatres, museums, libraries, etc. Cultural use admits some flexibility in architectural spaces that host it, allowing not to transform the existing building and its functions, excess so it tends to be the most often used in this type of restoration, which leads us to say that the monastic heritage is objectively predisposed for reuse with cultural applications, which allow to optimize its functionality without excessive architectural manipulation.
We could also add to the mentioned examples, other buildings not included in the selection of the work of Vázquez Consuegra, which once were monasteries and which evolved into the cultural use, as the convent of the Assumption of our Lady of Mercy (La Merced Calzada de la Asunción), occupied today by the Museum of Fine Arts of Seville; or other buildings which have come to be compatible with using administrative and cultural uses (the monastery of Saint Jerome of the Good View (San Jerónimo de Buenavista) is actually a civic centre, after going through multiple subsequent to its original religious use functions) or linked in any way to certain cultural dimensions as the archival (convent of the Mount of Zion (Montesión), current headquarters of the archive of protocols of the Notarial Association of Andalusia).Without prejudice to the assertion that the monastic facilities present a particular aptitude for their adaptation to the cultural destination, it is true that not all the restorations of convents are focused towards the cultural role, which does not make but reaffirm the ductility and the susceptibility of transformation for various uses.Currently, it is on the table a project by the architects Cruz y Ortiz to return the utility to the ancient convent of Saint Augustine (San Agustín) and transform it into hotel [18].This building has also been going through different applications: jail, markets, quartermaster barracks, iron warehouse until a few years ago and finally, if the aforementioned project was completed, it would end up as a hotel.We believe that this last use, as in the case of cultural uses, is a use especially well-suited for the real estate typology of the convents, which certify that within the plurality of applications that can be given to the monasteries, there are more or less appropriate to facilitate respect for the original architectural foundations, and cultural and touristic hotel applications seem to us at this point leading.

Conclusions
Within the different uses that were conceived the main historical buildings of the city of Seville (residential, religious, military, medical, industrial, educational, etc.), we have detected in this work that the monastic heritage represents an example of remarkable continuity of use throughout history, as compared with other types of the same scale and monumentality, as factory or barracks and its existence within the urban fabric remains constant.Rehearsing some objective factors which could have influenced this extensive extension of use, we have pointed out especially the identification of these congregations with the citizens of Seville.
However, we also found and have studied other cases where convents have lost over time its initial destination.Thus, to prevent their destruction, institutional use has been chosen on occasions, allowing the reuse of these buildings in the public interest's time to decay or abandonment.It is exactly what Vázquez Consuegra proposed in his extensive work in 1986, proposal that can be said is that he has had a wide implementation, reducing significantly the number of historical Sevillian buildings disused.
The analysis of rehabilitation of the monastic heritage with the introduction of new applications leads us to the conclusion that certain destinations may be more appropriate to others to ensure the correct vision of the original work allowing its renewed use without damaging the authentic character of the building.In particular, the cultural destination presents a better aptitude because new uses of this type tend to have a flexible and multifunctional component that allows an adjustment of spaces without affecting their structures and therefore preserve the image that comes to us and which will be maintained in the future.In any case, rehabilitations can not always safeguard the foundations of the original work because they arrive often already previously processed, so it is difficult to show the imprint of the convent houses that we have already received fully diluted, but our focus is that these historic spaces are not completely lost and will show its history as faithfully as possible.

Figure 1 :
Figure 1: One hundred buildings uses in its origin, in 1986 and today.

Figure 2 :
Figure 2: Eighteen convents or ex-convents in the one hundred buildings.

Figure 3 :
Figure 3: Refurbishment of the singular spaces of the convent of Saint Claire.

Figure 4 :
Figure 4: Current view of the monastery, headquarters of the IAPH, CAAC and IA University.
ters of the General Courts of Castile.It declined until the end of the Decade of the fifties of the twentieth century, coming to host the Italian Opera Theatre in 1936.Between 1956 and 1960, the City Council acquired the building and suffered the effects of new openings planned in the General Urban Plan of Seville of 1964, being demolished, saving only the Church that we know today, and creating Concordia Square and allowing the opening of a new street.In 1971 hosts the Revolutionary Museum of Contemporary Art, although it was transferred soon.

Table 1 :
Summary of transformations of the 7 selected convents.