Heliopolis (Seville)

Heliópolis is a residential neighborhood of Seville, whose name means "City of the Sun" in Greek. It was designed by the architect Fernando de Escondrillas and Luis de Alburquerque in 1929 for the Ibero-American Exposition in Seville. Its single-family homes are in the regionalist style.

Geography

The chalets were built on plots in an area near the Guadaíra River, which decades later was drained in that area and diverted. With the construction of the Los Bermejales neighborhood to the south, the old Guadaíra channel became a wild land between Heliópolis and that neighborhood. In the 2000s, the Guadalquivir Hydrographic Confederation started a park in the old riverbed that was opened in 2014.

Other nearby neighborhoods are the so-called Casas Baratas, Reina Mercedes and Los Bermejales.

Currently, the neighborhood houses among its chalets the headquarters of some companies, professional associations, the Romanian consulate and educational centers.

It also has a municipal market, the Los Andes market, where there is also a gym and is the headquarters of the Los Andes Neighborhood Association. Another association has recently been established among the residents of the area, the Heliópolis Forum Association to conserve and maintain its heritage.

In 1907 the Claretians settled in Seville, on Cantabria Street number 4. They reached an agreement with the Brotherhood of the Holy Burial to celebrate their services in the church of San Gregorio, on Alfonso XII Street. In 1912, Archbishop Cardinal Enrique Almaraz y Santos gave them the chapel of Santa María de Jesús, in Puerta de Jerez, and they moved their headquarters to an attached house, at 22 San Gregorio Street.

On May 2, 1940, the Claretians settled in a chalet in the neighborhood, at number 23 Amazonas Street. Over time they were able to put 3 classrooms in the neighborhood food market.

In 1943 the National Housing Institute began the construction of a school with a church, which in 1946 was transferred to the Claretians. They left the chapel of Santa María de Jesús and the neighborhood chalet and moved to their new facilities in 1947. The church of San Antonio María Claret was completed in 1950.

On October 1, 1941, some nuns from the congregation of Sisters of the Christian Doctrine founded the Colegio de Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes, also called the Colegio de la Doctrina Cristiana, at number 3 Ecuador Street. The school was founded It became small and in 1943 they bought land on the nearby Avenida Padre García Tejero, finishing the new school in 1947. Two subsequent expansion and improvement works were carried out, completed in 1951 and 1954. The school was exclusively for girls and is located in front of the school. Claret.

Toponymy

In 1935 the Board of Social Policy of the Seville City Council asked and managed to modify the street gazetteer, which until then had simply been alphabetized. Some streets were named after the republics of Latin America, although Argentina Street had to later be renamed Doctor Fleming to avoid duplication with Avenida República Argentina in the Los Remedios neighborhood of the city. Other streets were named after Spanish rivers. There is also a street called Doce de Octubre, another Amazonas, another called Tenerife and another Baleares. A bordering street in the neighborhood is called Ifni, which until 1969 was a Spanish territory, and another bordering street is called Padre García Tejero.

There are also two squares: the Plaza de los Andes, where there is a bar, a restaurant and a children's play area, and the Plaza del Inmaculada Corazón de María, better known in the area as the Plaza Chica or la Placita which also houses a play area for children.

The stadium was initially called Stadium and was used for soccer matches and Ibero-American events. Later it was a municipal stadium often used by Betis and on July 16, 1936 it signed a lease with the City Council to use it exclusively. In 1939 it was baptized as Heliópolis Municipal Stadium and in 1961, when it was bought by Betis, it was renamed Benito Villamarín Stadium. From 2000 to 2010 he was renamed Manuel Ruiz de Lopera and later recovered the name Benito Villamarín.

In 1958 the name of Hoteles del Guadalquivir was changed to Heliópolis by popular decision. The name of the neighborhood could have been proposed in the first place, according to the historian José Díaz de Mena, by the journalist Luis Carlos Mariani, in reference to the Seville sun.

History

The lands of Heliópolis were agricultural lands known as the Huertas del Camino, because they belonged to the brothers of the Camino: Manuel, José and Clemente. These lands were also called the Cortijo de Tablada.

In the year 1900, the architect Lerdo de Tejada planned Palmera Avenue as an important point for the growth of the city. In 1902 Velázquez Bosco proposed an urban expansion project that delimited the Guadaíra River. There were other related proposals such as those of councilor F. Candau, in 1905, and another to build housing under the Cheap Houses Law of 1921.

These lands became the property of the City Council, as well as a plot located next to it, which would be used to build a stadium. That stadium would later be the stadium of Real Betis Balompié, named Estadio Benito Villamarín.

In 1927, the necessary loans were granted for the construction of homes to accommodate technicians and visitors to the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929. The Sociedad de Construcciones y Edificacións S.A. He obtained a loan with the obligation to build 390 chalets, of four different types, which could house about 5,000 residents. In their origins, the now chalets were called Hoteles del Guadalquivir, also known as Hotelitos del Guadalquivir.

The construction company was Cooperativa Inmobiliaria de España, which was based in Madrid and the project was presented at the College of Architects of Madrid. The direction of the work was carried out by the architect José Pérez Pla.

Once this was finished, they were almost abandoned because they were at that time very far from the center of Seville and very poorly communicated. The construction company, Cooperativa Inmobiliaria de España, was seized for its debts with the Public Treasury and, therefore, in 1931 the chalets with gardens were put up for auction in the Municipal Court of the District of El Salvador. However, as there were no bidders, the plot was awarded to the State Real Estate Social Policy Board for 21,011,860 pesetas and 60 cents. The homes were rented to people who met certain requirements and almost all of them ended up in the hands of journalists and officials.

On October 16, 1930, María del Carmen García Galisteo, better known as Carmen Sevilla, was born in this Sevillian neighborhood. This internationally successful film, music and television star proudly carried the name of her hometown around the world.

In the Spanish Civil War, the residential neighborhood of Heliópolis, without any characteristics of a military objective, was bombed by Republican aviation, causing the death of 4 civilians. In 1942 the neighborhood became dependent on the National Housing Institute.

In 1937, a concentration camp of the Franco regime was located on its outskirts, in the area closest to the Centennial Bridge, with capacity for 250 political prisoners, although it finally housed about 500, to create a municipal collector that would serve drainage of discharges into the Guadalquivir.

After the war, the National Housing Institute absorbed the aforementioned board. The INV put the empty homes up for sale under advantageous conditions: 30,000 pesetas payable in monthly installments for 30 years. In 1948 the INV ceased to be part in the neighborhood and it becomes dependent solely on the Seville City Council.

In January 1948 it suffered, along with other areas, a great flood due to the overflowing of the Guadaíra.