Seville, world capital of flamenco. The Seville City Council wishes to certify this declaration by creating a museum. The Andalusian capital organizes the most important Flamenco Art Biennial – that of 2024 has exceeded its historical record of economic income with more than a million … euros and brought together 39,000 spectators – as well as stable programming in the neighborhoods and in collaboration with clubs; In addition, its artists and creators stand out in an increasingly universal scene. But he doesn’t have a temple, his own unique space dedicated to projecting his potential. Cultural engagement and tourist attraction support the project of Flamenco Museum in Sevillean old project which had already been proposed during the time of Juan Ignacio Zoido at City Hall and which the government team of José Luis Sanz wishes to resume.
There is even a reference in the upcoming budgets approved this week. The idea is to build the museum in the Pavilion of the Godmother, in the gardens of San Telmojust behind the Lope de Vega Theater and the Casino Exhibition. Thus, the Flamenco Museum would occupy a building in a privileged enclave but in which much remains to be done to restore the splendor of its origins, the Ibero-American Exhibition of 1929. In this sense, as ABC learned, the Royal Pavilion was managed, in Plaza América, but this space will ultimately be a museum dedicated to the figure of Aníbal González and to the valorization of regionalist architecture.
In addition to a museum, the Town Hall plans that the Pavillon de la Marraine will also house the permanent headquarters of the Flamenco Biennale, currently directed by Luis Ybarra. This was installed at the Triana Ceramics Center, but just a year ago the Tourism and Culture delegation of the Seville City Council reported on the reorganization of the ICAS spaces and its festivals, as in this case. The Biennale will move to the Fábrica de Artillería, a setting which this year has already hosted a parallel activity in the year in which the festival does not take place, the Amalgama cycle. However, if the Flamenco Museum is completed, the logic is that the offices of the Biennale will be permanently installed there, right next to one of its main stages, the Lope de Vega whose reopening, after three years of closure, is planned precisely for the inauguration of the next edition, in September 2026.
The Godmother’s Pavilion, created as the Nuevo Casino Pavilion, may have been designed by Vicente Traver or, in his case, by the technical office of the exhibition, according to the blog exhibitioniberoamericanadesevilla1929. Its name comes from the fact that in the mid-1940s, Carmen Polo, then godmother of the blind, opened it as a school for 50 blind girls. Among other uses, much more recent, it was the headquarters of the Environment Delegation, newspaper archives, as well as the old shells of the Faculty of Law.
Precisely, Sanz’s predecessor at town hall, the socialist Antonio Munozlooked for another use for this building. In February 2023, he signed an agreement of intent with the rector of the International University of Andalusia (UNIA), José Ignacio García, for this institution to develop an academic and cultural center in said pavilion. One of the main actions of this project would be to provide a permanent seat for the UNESCO Chair on Interculturality and Human Rights.
If this building from the heritage of 1929 has hosted various activities, the idea of the Flamenco Museum itself is not new either. In 2013, under the government of Juan Ignacio Zoido, the Institute of Culture and Arts of Seville (ICAS), dependent on the City Hall, commissioned the town planning to put out to public competition a museum of traditions in the surface parking lot next to the Money Tower. Logically, this project did not materialize, nor others planned later in this context. Finally, this annexed site will be the new interpretation center of the fortified enclosure of Seville (Ciras).
In any case, the Flamenco Museum is still in its embryonic state, although the Sanz government is already working to make it operational by including a position in the budgets approved a few days ago, as well as for the Seville History Museum and Holy Week Museum. The amount in the case of the Flamenco Museum or the Flamenco Interpretation Center will be 76,000 euros. In these same accounts that the popular group negotiated with Vox, those of Abascal proposed to almost double this amount. Given that this is a fairly low figure, everything indicates that the money will be allocated to the call for tenders for a preliminary study and not to the work or the museum itself.
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