We are talking about a version of the building that is currently the headquarters of the Seville School of Art. However, this work by the Chilean architect Juan Martínez Guitiérrez arrived in the city for the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929 and was the only avant-garde pavilion on display at the time: the Chilean Pavilion.
The cover of the 2025 Seville Fair will reproduce the iconic building, built for the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929, which will measure 50 meters long by 40 meters high and will move away, for the first time in years, from Sevillian regionalism. In 2023 it was inspired by the Plaza de España and the Teatro Coliseo, and in 2024 it did the same, emulating the Mudejar Pavilion of Aníbal González. A requirement for the competition since 2016 that the jury eliminated last year, allowing the projects to be based on other architectural styles.
As for its location, it occupies a block, which faces La Rábida street and the avenues of Peru, Uruguay and Chile; next to the Guadalquivir River, the San Telmo Palace and the Lope de Vega Theater. Likewise, this emblematic building has served as inspiration for the architect and interior designer, Pablo Escudero Gispert, creator of the next Portada of this Fiesta Mayor de Sevilla.
The delegate of festivities of the Andalusian capital, has stressed that "it is going to be a very recognizable portada and that will surprise the Sevillians a lot." where the tones used are far from the palette used on other occasions, with the emblematic coral and white of the pavilion combined with the green of the building's carpentry will be its main colors, since the Chilean Pavilion is considered to be an "icon of the neo-pre-Columbian style, with Art Deco reminiscences" and a "fundamental building in the city's architecture."
Likewise, Manuel Alés has announced that the centenary of the Ibero-American Exposition of 29 is already planned. "This is the first great municipal event in the face of a celebration that is almost two hundred years old, essential to understanding the daily life of our city and which is an inseparable part of the Seville calendar," he said. "For this reason, today we celebrate this wonderful ephemeral installation that, every year, serves as an entrance portico to a dream venue that is unique in the world and that this year will have the aromas of the 29 exhibition as its setting; that celebration that we will commemorate in style in a few years with its centenary and for which we are already working tirelessly from this government”.
For his part, in the words of Pablo Escudero, “the composition of the cover is distinguished by an impressive central arch inspired by one of the windows and the interior hall of the building, leaving the whole framed by a variety of volumes and shapes, which give rise to the two imposing and very recognizable side towers”. Between its characteristic white and magenta, the cover will be raised at the April Fair 2025, as a trace of time latent on the history of Seville.