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According to the general plan, Seville was to be readied for the challenge of hosting the world exposition by being developed into a modern city. The plan foresaw the renewal and expansion of the road and rail transport networks within the city, creating tighter and closer links between the various city districts and also reducing through-traffic. The plan also included details for redesigning many old city squares. Relocating the course of the railway improved the link to the national rail network and shortened journey times, whilst the track alignments which had effectively divided the city centre into two halves, were to be banned underground. This would make the two original train stations redundant, to be replaced by the new "Santa Justa" station building designed by Antonio Cruz and Antonio Ortiz. These two Seville architects gave their station design the flavour of the Art Deco period and it is now the most outstanding architectural monument to have been created in connection with the EXPO. In addition to numerous new motorways, a new high speed train link - the AVE - was built between Madrid and Seville which slashed the trip time from ten to a sensational three hours. On top of all this, the airport was rebuilt to a design of Rafael Moneo and the port to the south of the city was redeveloped on a large scale in anticipation of booming freight traffic.

The rebuilt Avenida Torneo followed the former railway alignment to create a link with the city for the quarter located opposite the exposition grounds on the bank of the Guadalquivir. The banks of the river were upgraded by terraces and avenues. In order to make the EXPO easily accessible from the city, and revitalise the river as an important inner city element, seven new bridges were built. The main access to the site was provided by the bridge which runs from the inner city to the monastery. The deliberately understated design employed asymmetrical box girder elements and stems from Luis Viñuela and Fritz Leonhard. To the north of this bridge, the Barqueta bridge was built to a design based on ideas presented by Juan Arenas and Marcos Pantaleon. The roadway is supported by cables suspended from a long extended arch, the ends of which split apart to straddle the road. At the same time, the lack of symbolic EXPO architecture was made good by the Santiago Calatrava designed motorway bridge. The Alamillo bridge has a 140 metre high angled pylon from one side of which diagonal cables reach across the river to anchor points in the opposite bank.

To cope with the hoped for and generously calculated hordes of visitors, 40,000 car parking spaces and 1,100 bus parking spaces were developed on the island. Visitor transport within the exposition was provided by a magnetic overhead railway, a cable car system, busses, electric cars for employees, boats and a catamaran.


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1933 | 1937 | 1939 | 1958 | 1962 | 1967 | 1970 | 1992 | 1998 | 2000
The Seville World Exposition 1992
A new city infrastructure
Year: 1992City: SevillaCountry: Spain
Duration: 20th April - 12th October 1992

 

 

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