Metropol Parasol

Metropol Parasol, known to everyone in Seville as Las Setas, "the mushrooms", is a giant canopy of timber latticework spread over the Plaza de la Encarnación in the old town. Its vast parasols, joined into a single undulating roof about 150 metres long, 70 metres wide and some 26 metres high, rise from the square on thick trunks. It is promoted as the largest wooden structure in the world, and from the walkway that winds across its top the whole medieval centre of Seville, with the cathedral and the Giralda, lies spread out below.

The structure was designed by the German architect Jürgen Mayer H., who won an international competition held in 2004 against 65 rival entries. Its history is bound up with the square itself. A market hall stood on the Plaza de la Encarnación from the nineteenth century until it was demolished in the mid-twentieth, and the site then lay empty for decades. In 1990 work on a new market and car park uncovered Roman and Moorish remains, halting the project. The competition sought a design that would protect the ruins, house a market and give the city a new public square.

Construction began in 2005, but the engineers at Arup found that the original design could not be built as drawn, and a solution using glued and reinforced joints in micro-laminated Finnish pine, around 3,500 cubic metres of it, had to be developed. The Setas were completed in April 2011. The lowest level is the Antiquarium, a museum built around the excavated Roman and Moorish remains; at street level is the market, with a shaded plaza above; the upper levels carry panoramic terraces and the rooftop walkway. Seville, the capital of Andalusia, is otherwise a city of Gothic, Mudéjar and Baroque landmarks, and the Setas have become one of its most visited sights.

Getting there

Metropol Parasol stands on the Plaza de la Encarnación in the historic centre of Seville, a walk through the old town from the cathedral. Seville Airport (SVQ) is about 9 km away.