The conquest of Seville in 1248 led to the emergence of a frontier with the Nasrid kingdom of Granada that would survive for two and a half centuries, known as the "Moorish Band". The defence of this frontier, which based much of its success on the relief separating the Guadalquivir valley and the eastern provinces of Andalusia, was structured around main towns and a network of fortifications that formed a mesh of towers with visual communication between them to provide warning in the event of assaults.
Their construction and maintenance was the responsibility of the council of Seville and the military orders. Based on planimetry, photography, a study of materials and documentary research, we discover the existence of a typology common to the towers built by the council of Seville, with a standardised design and innovative structures for the period.
The next session of the Al-Andalus Chair, to be given by Juan Francisco Molina Rozalem, Doctor of Architecture from the University of Seville, will deal with all of this. Graduated from the School of Architecture in 2006, he subsequently studied the Master's Degree in Architecture and Historical Heritage 2006-2007, and the Master's Degree in Architecture and Historical Heritage 2010-2011. In 2014 he obtained his doctorate with a doctoral thesis titled Defensive architecture on the borders of the kingdom of Seville during the Late Middle Ages. Territorial implantation of the fortifications and analysis of the Moorish band.. This thesis was awarded in 2015 with the Defence Prize, given by the Ministry of Defence to the best doctoral thesis read and approved in Spanish universities in 2014.
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