House of Science (Seville)

Brief Information

The House of Science occupies not a purpose-built museum, but the Peruvian Pavilion of the 1929 Ibero-American Exposition in María Luisa Park. As a result, the science center here is read over an earlier layer of representative architecture: the building continues to evoke Peru, while inside it functions as a venue for exhibitions, lectures, seminars, and a planetarium.

The building’s purposes have changed noticeably. It houses the Consulate General of Peru, the Doñana Biological Station operated here for twenty years, and since 2008 part of the premises has been open to the public as the House of Science. This shift matters: the place does not simply present research to visitors, but is literally assembled from diplomatic, scientific, and museum functions.

What to Notice First

It makes sense to connect the pavilion’s exterior appearance with its contents. The architect Manuel Piqueras Cotolí worked with a combination of indigenous and colonial architecture, and the details of the House of Science explicitly note echoes of his Peruvian projects. In this way, the building explains why a science center in Seville does not look like a neutral exhibition box.

Inside, you can compare three types of observation: exhibitions on Andalusian invertebrates, the geology of Seville, and Andalusian cetaceans present the region through the living, the stone, and the marine. The clepsydras, or water clocks, and the ecosphere aquarium stand out separately: these are no longer themes, but working or closed objects in which a scientific idea becomes visible through their mechanism. The basement adds an unexpected twist: the first scenes of “Lawrence of Arabia” were filmed there, and now the space is used for meetings of the Higher Council.