Torre del Oro Audio Guide

Torre del Oro: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Torre del Oro

   Welcome to the Torre del Oro, the Tower of Gold. You are standing on Paseo de Cristóbal Colón, right beside the Guadalquivir River, in front of one of the most recognizable silhouettes in Seville. Take a moment to look at it. This is a dodecagonal tower, which means it has 12 sides. It was built as a military watchtower, and its job was to control access to Seville from the river. It rises about 36 meters, and it is still the first thing many people picture when they think of this city. In the next few minutes we will follow its story: how it was raised by the Almohads in the early thirteenth century, how three different eras stacked their work on top of one another, why its name is wrapped in legend, and how a tower built for defense became a home for the sea's memory. Keep your eyes on its three stages as I talk. They are the key to everything.

2. 02

   A Watchtower for the River

   Let's go back to the years 1220 and 1221. Seville was then part of the Almohad Caliphate, and the governor of the city, Abu l-Ulà, ordered a tower built beside the river. It was raised between March 1220 and February 1221, with a twelve-sided base about 15 meters and 20 centimeters across, made of lime concrete. The tower was never meant to stand alone. A stretch of wall, called a coracha, joined it to the Almohad city walls and to the Torre de la Plata, the Silver Tower, an octagonal tower that still stands nearby and is believed to date from the same era. Together they helped defend the Alcázar. Here, the tower barred the way between the riverbank and the Arenal district. Its strength was its position. Standing at the river's edge, tall and self-contained, it commanded the terrain around it and watched over the ships that could come up the Guadalquivir. Think of it as a gatekeeper made of stone, with the river as its road.

3. 03

   Three Stages, Three Centuries

   Here is the trick for reading this tower: it was built in three clearly different parts, from different centuries. The bottom stage is the Almohad original from 1220 and 1221. Above it, a smaller second body was added in the fourteenth century, ordered by King Peter the First of Castile, the monarch known as Peter the Cruel. That level looks hexagonal from below but twelve-sided from the outside, and unlike the base, parts of it are covered with tiles. The crown came much later. In 1760, after reconstruction work following the earthquake that began in Lisbon, the military engineer Sebastian Van der Borcht added the upper cylindrical body, topped by a small dome finished in golden tiles. The same engineer was also the architect of the Royal Tobacco Factory of Seville. His work changed the tower's look compared with the engravings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The result is the tower you see today, 36 meters and 75 centimeters tall. It is also counted among the first buildings of the Iberian Peninsula to carry ceramic decoration, a lovely detail for a city that fell in love with tile.

4. 04

   Why Is It Called Gold?

   Now for the question every visitor asks: why gold? The honest answer is that the tower's name has inspired more stories than certainties. Legend says the tower was once covered in gold. Another popular tale says King Peter of Castile hid gold and silver treasure inside it. Local lore even gives the tower a resident: a woman named Doña Aldonza, who was said to live inside the watchtower. These are tales of the city's imagination, and they are part of the tower's charm. What the record does show is that golden tiles crown its upper section, and that the tower has been Seville's emblem for centuries. A tower named for gold, shimmering by a river, is the kind of image that invites a legend. Next time the sun hits the riverbank, notice how the light plays on it. You may find your own explanation.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off

   The tower you see has changed hands, roles and looks many times. It was declared a historic-artistic monument in 1931 and has been restored several times, in 1900, between 1991 and 1992, in 1995, and again in the early two-thousands. The Spanish Navy has played an important part in looking after it. In 1936 a decision was made to install a maritime museum here, and it was inaugurated in 1944. At the opening, the speaker declared that the tower had stopped being an empty, abandoned shell beside the river and would now take on new sounds. Today the Naval Museum is inside, and the tower is one of the most visited monuments in the city, with views over the river and the city. In 1992, to celebrate the Universal Exposition in Seville, it was twinned with the Tower of Belém in Lisbon. Before you move on, walk a little along the riverside, then look back and see how the three stages sit against the sky. And if you wander toward the Calle Santander area, see if you can spot its smaller neighbor, the Silver Tower.