Saint John of Aznalfarache

San Juan de Aznalfarache is a Spanish municipality in the province of Seville, in Andalusia, located next to the city of Seville. It is located on the banks of the Guadalquivir.

Geography

Its surface area is 4 km². Its geographic coordinates are 37º 22' N, 6º 01' O. It is located at an altitude of 49 meters and 4 kilometers from the provincial capital, Seville. San Juan has a cooler climate than Seville in summer due to its altitude and the regulating influence of temperatures exerted by the Guadalquivir, with its great flow, in a large part of the town. On the other hand, there are a large number of aquifers.

	Beds
Tomares		Sevilla
Mairena del Aljarafe	Gelves

Urban planning

The urban framework of San Juan was born from planning in the late 60s and early 70s, years in which the town extended towards the Cornisa del Aljarafe. It consists of three different areas:

• Barrio Bajo; primitive core of the town, located next to the Guadalquivir and with excellent communications.
• Barriada del Monumento; it has improved its situation since the City Council received it and ceased to be a military sweep. He has now seen how communications were improved and the gardens of the Sacred Heart Monument were restored.
• Barrio Alto; the most extensive and where shops, banks and services are located.

Demographics

Economy

View of Seville from San Juan de Aznalfarache at the beginning of the centuryXIX in Voyage pittoresque et historique de l'Espagne

The economy of San Juan is based on the service sector, with large shopping centers, and the headquarters of Canal Sur Televisión and the Public Business Agency Radio Televisión de Andalucía. In the industrial aspect, Arrocerías Herba stands out, from the group Ebro Foods, with the largest Andalusian rice packaging company.

Due to its small territorial extension, built almost in its entirety, there is no agricultural or livestock production worth mentioning. The little livestock activity that existed at the beginning of the decade has been drowned out by urban activity. The main activity of the municipality is concentrated in the services sector.

The geographical situation of San Juan favors the local economy as it is very close to Seville and is a communications hub between the capital of Seville, the Aljarafe region and various towns in the Guadalquivir valley. This has allowed San Juan to develop an important commercial fabric, with the presence of large stores, which employ many residents of the town. A large part of the residents of the town make their lives and work in the city of Seville, bringing this municipality closer to the type of population known as dormitory city.

This municipality is integrated, along with many others, in the Ciudad 21 program that promotes and aims to achieve sustainable development in Andalusia.

Evolution of outstanding municipal debt

Graphic of evolution of living debt of the City of San Juan de Aznalfarache between 2008 and 2019

Living debt of the City of San Juan de Aznalfarache in thousands of Euros according to data from the Ministry of Finance and Ad. Public.

Transportation

San Juan has sustainable means of transportation. In 2009, Line 1 of the Seville Metro was inaugurated, which has two stations in San Juan; San Juan Alto and San Juan Bajo and some escalators and an elevator that connect this last station with El Monumento. It also has a multitude of bus lines from the Seville Area Transport Consortium. In 2014, a platform was built on the SE-30 to be able to access Seville through the San Juan Bridge by bicycle.

Historical Heritage

Plaza del Auditorio en el Barrio Alto

They involve elements of cultural interest:

Casa de Minas de Cala

Casa de las Minas de Cala from the platform on the A8058 road, during the celebration of a market

The building that housed the director's house and the offices of the Cala-San Juan mining railway is known as Casa de Minas de Cala. It is one of the most representative civil monuments of San Juan de Aznalfarache as it is a symbol of the industrial past of the municipality. Between 1850 and 1940 San Juan was the industrial and service center of Aljarafe and had a great economic development and a strong increase in the population (1800%). This boom was one of the reasons that justified the segregation of Tomares and the constitution of San Juan as an independent municipality by law of July 15, 1890.

San Juan Plano located in Barrio Alto.

There were many manufacturing facilities that transformed the rural landscape of San Juan into one of chimneys, roads, bridges, warehouses, factories, and docks. The industries of Olmedo, Lissén, Codefasa, Cros, Sanavida and, above all, the great San Juan Ceramics factory drew this new profile. These industries brought wealth to the town. Also to many workers who formed an urban proletariat that suffered difficult working conditions and was punished by frequent outbreaks of malaria.

RTVA Headquarters.

In the early 20th century the railroad reached San Juan. The Law of December 13, 1901 and the R.O. On February 22, 1902, an administrative concession for 99 years was approved for the Biscayan company Minas de Cala, the purpose of which was to build and operate a railway for private service and public use from the mines of Cala to San Juan de Aznalfarache and the river. Guadalquivir. The metric gauge line had 115 km, 8 bridges, 3 viaducts and 7 tunnels. It was inaugurated on August 24, 1905. San Juan was filled with railway facilities (station, tunnel, workshops, tracks, commissary...), as well as two unique facilities were built: the wharf-pier and the management and administration house. The railway offered passenger service until 1938 and freight until 1955.

The gigantic wharf-pier was the piece of greatest interest and architectural presence on the line. It consisted of two large double-height viaducts and as many platforms with Corral system wagon tilters for loading ships. It was designed between 1905 and 1907 by the prestigious engineer Juan Manuel de Zafra (1869-1923) and built with an innovative technology: reinforced concrete. It was the first application in Andalusia of this modern material.

The other unique building linked to the railway is the happily restored management and administration house. Built in 1904, according to a project by the Basque engineer Juan de Areitio, it was built by the firm Ricardo Delgado, from Guillena, except for the carpentry and the large metal cap that were supplied by Biscayan foundries. The property presents characteristics that some art historians classify as railway style. It is a chalet-type building, built in brick, but with a less sophisticated solution than the typical English constructions of the s. XIX. It has several volumes with straight and sober lines as well as pleasant earth colours. It is covered with a gabled roof and a large central glazed montera in its center. It was made of brick on a stone plinth. The ground floor housed the railway offices, reserving the upper floor for management housing, which was even accessed through a private door. The construction implied a modern vision of railway architecture and its model was repeated in other unique buildings of the various industrial railway lines that would be built in the westernmost area of Andalusia at the beginning of the century XX.

The history of this railway ended definitively in 1960, victim of the economic unfeasibility of the project (Decree 47/60, of January 14). The materials, except the buildings, were auctioned between that year and 1965. After the activity ceased, the house was no longer used and experienced a rapid deterioration. In 1984 it was transferred to the Junta de Andalucía. On August 15, 1988, it suffered a raging fire that devastated practically all of its structure, of which only the perimeter walls were left standing.

Restoration

The San Juan City Council obtains the transfer of ownership of the property. The history of the recovery of the Casa de Minas de Cala begins. The intervention has been a technically complex project, given the precarious state of conservation of the building. It has been carried out according to the project of the architects Ramón Gómez Bustillo and Alfonso Guajardo-Fajardo Ibarra.

For methodological and operational reasons, the action was divided into four phases. The first, in 2007, for consolidation, resolved the structural problems of the deteriorated property. The second, already for rehabilitation, took place in 2008 and was carried out by the Aznalfarache employment workshop. The third phase, charged to the state fund for local investment (plan 8000), allowed the restoration of the monument to be completed between 2009 and 2010. The fourth and last (2010-2011) has consisted of the urbanization of the environment and construction of adapted accesses. This phase has been carried out under the state fund for employment and local sustainability (plan 5000). The total budget of the project has amounted to 2.19 million euros and has generated more than 60 direct and indirect jobs.

The monumental site of San Juan de Aznalfarache

It is a multifunctional space designed by the architect Aurelio Gómez Millán (1898-1991). It follows a broad program of uses (devotional, educational, funeral, leisure...) devised by Cardinal Pedro Segura Sáenz (1940). A first project (1935) commissioned by the also Archbishop of Seville Eustaquio Ilundain y Esteban is documented. The complex extends over an area of 3 ha. that occupies part of the historic hill of San Juan. From it you can see a panoramic view of the city of Seville so beautiful that the writer Armando Palacio Valdés described it as the most beautiful view in the world.

The enclosure is articulated around two large spaces: the large porticoed plaza open to Tablada and the Guadalquivir (1945) and the gardens on the hillside (1947). In each of these areas, the monument to the heart of Jesus (1942) and the Triumph of the heart of Mary (1944) are arranged as a fulcrum or visual axis, respectively.

Around the porticoed square and following the clockwise movement, the Chapel of Christ of Forgiveness (1947), the temple and convent of Las Salesas (1945-50), the Salesian schools (1948), the Garden of Bethany with the hostelry and the bookstore (1946), the retreat house in the old convent of Minimal friars (1942-3) and the crypt with the votive chapel (1949). The enclosure was inaugurated in November 1948. Several of these spaces today have functions or titles other than those projected.

The entire complex is a dense convergence of architectural and figurative perceptions, identifications, and representations. His profile is part of the image of San Juan and also of the exterior landscape of Seville. The site incorporates historicist architecture into the iconographic collection of both cities, with aesthetic proposals ranging from the Mudejar to the Neo-Baroque through the Neo-Renaissance, perhaps somewhat anachronistic, but very characteristic and suggestive.

The gardens occupy the slope of the hill and are conceived following a markedly scenographic criteria. The qualities of the landscape have been put at the service of an idea that is referenced by promoting elevation as the most significant characteristic of the place. From the access portico, located in the Lower Quarter, and starting from a central space, a series of garden terraces articulated with stairs and ramped paths, lead to the entrance of the large porticoed square. The space between one level and the other is the one recovered by the Junta de Andalucía and the San Juan de Aznalfarache City Council.

The construction memory of the "Triumph of the Heart of Mary" dates from February 25, 1944, which occupies the lowest level of the garden and acts as its spatial catalyst. The Triumph is a type of monument, evolved from the Roman commemorative column, which acquires its conceptual dimension in the Baroque (resemantization), from the Mena-Potes model built between 1616 and 1631 in Granada, and which was followed by, among others, the monuments of Antequera, Seville, Écija, Cádiz, and the various ones in Córdoba, all built between the 17th and 18th centuries. A triumph is normally made up of a slender column or pillar raised on a more or less complex pedestal, crowned by the sculpture to which it is dedicated. The Triumph of San Juan responds to this model.

For the promoter, the Triunfo should be a jewel carved in stone and marble and both Aurelio Gómez Millán and the sculptor José Lafita Díaz (1887-1945) author of the iconographic program dedicated themselves to it with all their efforts. Due to a personal decision by the architect, the monument incorporates a marble replica of the image of the Virgen del Amparo preserved in the Church of La Magdalena (Seville), which stands 17 meters high. It is located in the roundabout at the entrance to the garden, and serves as the starting point for the mentioned paths that constitute a contemplative itinerary dedicated to the mysteries of the rosary (painful, joyful and glorious). Said mysteries (significant events) are graphically represented in fifteen chapels by means of artistic original marble reliefs by the Catalan sculptor Claudio Rius Garrich (1893-1970), an artisan of extensive production, specializing in sacred themes, who worked on the Cathedral of Seville.

Church and convent of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

The other large building in the complex is the old church of the Franciscan convent, today the parish of the Sacred Hearts, in which the paintings of the main altarpiece stand out.

The Ministry of Culture of the Junta de Andalucía, through the Andalusian Institute of Historical Heritage, has restored the five original canvases of the painter Juan del Castillo, which constitute part of the altarpiece of San Juan Bautista preserved in the current church of the Sacred Hearts of San Juan de Aznalfarache.

The five canvases The Baptism of Christ, Saint John the Evangelist on the island of Patmos, The Preaching of Saint John the Baptist, The Birth of Saint John the Baptist and Saint John the Evangelist in the tub, are part of the Main Altarpiece of the aforementioned temple. The wood architecture, sculptures and paintings were originally made to decorate the presbytery of the parish of San Juan de la Palma (Seville), where it remained until 1710, when it was transferred to the church of the convent of San Antón, of minor Franciscan friars (current parish).

The construction of the altarpiece was agreed upon in October 1734, its authors being Miguel Cano (wooden architecture) and Juan del Castillo (painting). The artist Alonso Cano, Miguel's son, acted as Juan del Castillo's sculptor and guarantor. It is known that the undertaking was haphazard, failing to meet the agreed deadlines and deciding to replace two iconographic themes. At his death, Castillo had not carried out all the contracted works, which is why in 1658 Gaspar de Rivas was commissioned to gild the altarpiece.

Juan del Castillo is one of the great painters of the Andalusian Baroque, born in Seville around 1590, forming himself in the late Mannerist spirit, in force in the last decades of the century XVI of Sevillian painting, and reinforcing his style with the study of engravings and prints. From the second decade of the XVII century, his art evolved towards an intimate naturalism, of a certain descriptive nature, and warmer chromaticism incorporating details inspired by the works of Pacheco, the young Diego Velázquez, and even Zurbarán. The importance of Castillo in the Sevillian school of painting is much more important than traditional historiography reports, since it is currently accepted that he was the teacher of Bartolomé Esteban Murillo.

The Almohad wall

Monument declared an Asset of Cultural Interest (Law 16/1985, of June 25, of the Spanish Historical Heritage) registered in the General Catalog of the Historical Heritage of Andalusia (Law 14/2007, of November 26, of the Historical Heritage of Andalusia).

The parish church of San Juan Bautista

It was built in 1929. It is the work of the architect Vicente Sánchez Traver.

Public services

The main public services are:

Smurf Park

It is a municipal park with an approximate area of 1.5 hectares. It runs parallel to the A-8058 highway (service branch) from Avenida 28 de Febrero, where it has its entrance, to the 1.º de Mayo Municipal Sports Center. It has a flat area and another that corresponds to the Aljarafe cornice. The space was configured like this in 1981, related to the trench solution that was given to the crossing of the town of the then called new access to Seville from Aljarafe (1975-1985). Precisely the park occupies a space between this infrastructure and the western edge of the built complex of the upper neighborhood of San Juan.

Initially called Minas de Cala Children's Park, it began to be known, practically from its construction, as the Smurfs' park, connecting the children's public with the play equipment that the park had at the time (mini-castles and mini-houses) with the television broadcast of the successful cartoon series Les Schtroumpfs (The Smurfs) original by the great Belgian cartoonist Pierre Culliford (Peyo). Already in 1988 the press reported that the park was better known by its popular name than by its official name.

Throughout these almost thirty years, the Smurfs park has undergone several renovations, the most important being that of 1997. In addition to being a biozone for recreation and leisure, the Smurfs park has had occupations as diverse as cinema summer, craft market, zoo, competitions of all kinds, etc.

In 2011 the park was reopened after carrying out works according to a project by Jorge Pérez Jiménez, an agricultural technical engineer, and work has been done to standardize and order the different spaces and plant elements that make up the plot, which has been provided with a large recreation area with children's games and two others for outdoor physical education and fitness activities. An area with play facilities for children and a rest area with a kiosk-bar have also been designed.

In the southern part, the artificial estuary has been maintained, providing it with new landscaping. We can also appreciate elms and melias to which new species have been added such as pines, jacarandas... Two large venues for outdoor sports activities have been arranged in this space, equipped with the necessary equipment and elements for carrying out physical maintenance exercises. Further north we can see unique combinations of plants and trees that are aesthetically very pleasing. We contemplate cercis, trees of paradise, eleagnus and Japanese plums... In this area trees from other areas of the same have been transplanted that did not make sense in their previous locations and specimens of Aleppo pines and albizias have been included, which form different corners of unique ornamental beauty.

Finally, it should be noted that, running through the park from north to south, a comfortable bike-jogging lane has been built that also serves as a connecting element for the different areas that make up the rehabilitated Smurfs park.

May 1st Sports Center

The City Council has two sports centers, Nuestra Señora del Loreto, in the El Monumento neighborhood, and the 1st of May Sports Center, located in the Barrio Bajo. The 1.º de Mayo Sports Center is the best equipped, and has an indoor swimming pool, an outdoor Olympic swimming pool, an artificial grass soccer field, a gym and an athletics track.

Mayors

Since 1979, San Juan de Aznalfarache has had the following mayors: Antonio Pérez Sánchez (1979-1995), Isidro González (1995-1999), Juan Ramón Troncoso (1999-2009) and Fernando Zamora Ruiz (since 2009). Except for Isidro González, from IU-LV-CA, the rest were chosen from the PSOE-A lists,