The soul of Arenal

“The Lord King Don Alonso the Wise built some Shipyards or Arsenal, so grandiose that if it remained in its old form and served the use for which it was built, it would be one of the most celebrated buildings in Seville (…)”, thus Rodrigo Caro, a poet and priest from Utrera, lamented the state in which the historic shipyards of the city of Seville were located at the beginning of the 17th century.. That lament lasted for centuries and found an echo in the voices of those who, since the end of the last century, have seen how that space of imposing arcades that could be seen behind the broken glass on Calle Dos de Mayo, continued to sleep the sleep of the forgotten.

After disputes between administrations, rejected files, resolutions, resources and a pandemic, (we only lacked the expected alien invasion), finally in February of last year the rehabilitation works of the historic shipyard began, which should open its doors next year converted in (insert drum roll here) a great museum of contemporary art (applause). At least that's how it was announced last week by a local media.

Here, any last hour related to the Shipyards makes our ears prick up, logically, on the other hand, in a city that has a museum of fine arts languishing waiting for an expansion that never comes, an archaeological museum closed for works that we already know are they are not going to meet deadlines and an Andalusian Center for Contemporary Art (CAAC) which, with this new twist in the script, would leave shivering. It is true that there is an emotional distance, more than a physical one, between the island of La Cartuja, where the CAAC is located, and the rest of the city, like that plant neighbor with whom you almost never come across and you doubt that he continues to live In front of your door, in any case, something solvable by adopting the necessary measures for better communication and integration.

As for the Royal Shipyards, their origin and evolution are so intrinsically linked to the history of the city that it is hard to imagine them with any skin other than the wood of the galleys that left their ships in Seville's Arenal.. A building that must have been started by Ferdinand III after the conquest of the city in 1248 and completed by his son Alfonso X in 1252, to become a monumental arsenal, larger than that of Venice, the base of the maritime power of the most serene. For this, there were no better ships than galleys, light and agile to navigate along the coast and with the capacity to transport up to two hundred men..

Quoted and requested, the galleys that fought in the English Channel against the British in the Hundred Years War left the Seville arsenal. An intervention that must be understood as the payment of a favor from Henry II to France for the support received in the civil war against his half-brother and King Pedro I.

But not only does man live from the sea, there was also space for other uses, including prison, a prison through which captives captured by galleys in their raids through North Africa passed, but also renowned historical figures like the Granada king Muhammad VI, the vermilion king. The Casa de la Contratación also had its first headquarters here, before moving to the Alcázar, and some ships would be used as a warehouse for the Indies fleet.

In its heyday, the Shipyards had more than 35 galleys in the water, but glory, as it comes, goes, and in the second half of the 16th century a decline began marked by the end of the aforementioned War of the Hundred Years (ships are no longer needed and the maintenance of disabled ships has a very high cost) and by the new transoceanic voyages, long and dangerous voyages for which the galleys were not prepared.

Up to the present day, seven of the seventeen ships that made up that enormous space have survived.. The reduction of the ships is due to the reuse of the spaces to house institutions such as the Casa de la Moneda and the Customs, at the end of the 16th century..

The plague epidemic of 1649, which was a turning point in the history of the city, and the transfer of maritime trade to Cádiz, were the last blow to a place that had lost its soul..

But sometimes, losing you also win. And, thanks to the philanthropy of a character marked with a fluorescent marker in our local history, Miguel de Mañara, we won an artistic group that I consider to be one of the most extraordinary Baroque buildings in Spain, the Hospital de la Caridad, with its beautiful church of San Jorge, raised on five ships of the old arsenal. When walking through the interior of the hospital, the brick of the Gothic arcades appears, an irreducible shell under the protection of hospital charity.

The immensity of its cathedral naves still preserves the voices of the caulkers, the vultures, the remolars, the sail craftsmen, the shipwrights and Magellan's flirtation with Beatriz Barbosa, daughter of the lieutenant warden of the Shipyards. With the rehabilitation of the Royal Shipyards, eight centuries of history are at stake.

It is time to recover part of our soul, the one that smells of the sea.