A routine market project underfoot froze for over a decade after workers hit Roman ruins.
Last reviewed 27 September 2026 · A three-minute read · 749 BC–2011
The short answer
Plaza de la Encarnación in Sevilla, Spain, was meant to hold a market hall and parking garage in 1990 when workers struck Roman floors, a Muslim-era wall and gate, and Visigothic remains beneath the surface. Work stopped for over a decade until Metropol Parasol, a vast timber canopy completed in 2011, rose above the preserved ruins instead of a garage.
Seville, Sevilla, Spain — 2011 · alfonsocg1983 · CC BY 3.0
1973 to 1990
A parking project uncovered a buried city
The market building that once stood in this square came down for good in 1973, worn out and unsafe. The lot sat empty for seventeen years. In 1990 the city finally moved to build something new here. They planned a fresh market hall. A parking garage would go underneath it. It was an ordinary fix for an ordinary empty block.
Nobody was digging for history. They were digging for parking spaces.
Then the machines struck something that was not soil. Roman floors and walls came up out of the ground. So did traces of the Al-Andalus city that had grown over them for a thousand years. They found all this layer under layer, right where the parking level was meant to go. The find was too important to bulldoze through. Work stopped. The 14 million euros already spent sat as a sunk cost. Officials argued over what to do with a site that had just proven it was older than anyone building a garage had planned for.
The city spent 14 million euros before the shovels hit anything worth keeping.
2004 to 2011
A wooden canopy rose to shelter Roman ruins
In 2004 the city tried again, this time asking the world for ideas. Sixty-five architects entered a competition. They had to solve one problem: how do you put a market, a parking structure, and a public plaza on top of ruins nobody was allowed to cover up? The winner was Metropol Parasol, a Berlin architect. His design lifted the whole project into the air. A canopy of curved wooden lattice rose on six pillars. The Roman and Moorish remains were preserved in a museum underneath it. It is now called the Metropol Parasol.
The design nearly failed a second time. By 2007, partway through construction, the engineering firm Arup told the city the structure as drawn was not technically feasible. Some of its core assumptions about the timber had never been tested. The plan seemed to push past what the materials could actually hold. Engineers spent two years reworking the joints with glued reinforcement before the frame could go up safely. The total cost pushed toward 100 million euros.
The finished structure opened in 2011. It was built from 3,500 cubic meters of laminated Finnish pine. It is marketed as the largest wooden structure in the world. Below your feet, the Roman gate and the Al-Andalus wall are still there, exactly where the parking garage was supposed to go.
1799
A market square became a gallows for one day
This ground had already stood in for what it was never built for. In 1799 a condemned man was hanged at the Encarnación instead of the usual gallows in the Plaza de San Francisco. The feast of San Fernando fell that year and executions were barred at the customary spot. Officials moved the scaffold here instead. A market square, for one day, became a place of death because the calendar left them no other ground to use.
The feast day meant the hanging had to happen somewhere else, and somewhere else was here.
1591 to 1810
A king demolished the convent for a public square
Long before the ruins, this same plaza had already been cleared once. In 1591 a merchant named Juan de la Barrera owned houses on this ground. He gave them up to found the Convent of the Encarnación. It was an Augustinian house of nuns. He asked to be buried inside it, with the high altar dedicated to the Annunciation. The convent stood here for more than two centuries.
Then a foreign king ended it. Joseph Bonaparte was installed as king of Spain during the French occupation. He ordered the convent demolished on April 28, 1810. He wanted a public plaza where the building had stood. The Augustinian nuns were scattered to other convents in the city, some to the Convent of Los Terceros. The ground was cleared for a square that would sit empty, rebuilt and torn down again, for the next 180 years.
43 AD and before
A Roman gate stood at the center of this square
The reason nothing built here ever lasts is under the paving stones. Roman, Visigothic and Muslim remains lie beneath the plaza, evidence of nearly two thousand years of people building on this exact patch of ground. At its center once stood a gate through the old city wall. This was Isbiliya, the Muslim name for Roman Hispalis. It was the northern entrance into the walled town. The wall ran from here toward Laraña, marking the line between what became the Encarnación-Regina and Alfalfa neighborhoods.
Every builder who came after inherited the same problem. A convent went up on Roman ground. A square replaced the convent. A parking garage tried to go under the square and hit the wall itself. The ruins were never in anyone's way by accident. They were always already there.
The Roman gate and the convent's foundations lie under the wooden canopy now, both kept instead of buried.
Read the ground you are standing on
Every person, building and event in this story opens into its own dig in the app — and Strata will dig the ground under your feet instead, wherever that is, in about a minute, with every source shown.
Sourced records, high and medium confidence. Era background is marked as such.
Ancient
800 BC to 1248 AD
Records track this ground through Spal, Hispalis, Išbīliya and Sevilla — the same place renamed by Phoenicians, Romans, Muslim rulers and Christians in turn.
Excavations beneath the Plaza de la Encarnación uncovered layers of occupation stretching back nearly 2,000 years, now shown in the Antiquarium museum inside Metropol Parasol.
Juan de la Barrera donated his houses in 1591 to found the Convent of the Encarnación, on condition he was buried there and the altar dedicated to the Annunciation.
The Palace of the Countess of Lebrija, dating to the 16th century and remodeled over centuries, displays Roman mosaics and antiquities inside its courtyards.
On 28 April 1810, during the French occupation, José Bonaparte ordered the Convent of the Encarnación demolished to make way for a public plaza, scattering its Augustinian nuns to other convents.
A vast wooden lattice structure called Metropol Parasol, nicknamed 'Las Setas' (the Mushrooms), was completed in 2011 over the site, housing a market, an archaeological museum, and a rooftop walkway.
A market square called Plaza de la Encarnación stood here, and before that an Augustinian convent founded in 1591. Beneath both lay Roman, Visigothic and Muslim remains, including a gate in the old city wall of Isbiliya.
What happened at Plaza de la Encarnación in 1990?
Workers building a planned market hall and underground parking garage struck Roman floors, walls and traces of the later Al-Andalus city, stopping construction after 14 million euros had already been spent.
Why did construction of Metropol Parasol nearly fail?
In 2007 the engineering firm Arup told the city that the winning design was not technically feasible as drawn, since some assumptions about the timber had never been tested. Engineers spent two years reworking the joints with glued reinforcement before building could continue.
What is Metropol Parasol made of?
Metropol Parasol, designed by a Berlin architect and completed in 2011, is built from 3,500 cubic meters of laminated Finnish pine and is marketed as the largest wooden structure in the world.
What happened to the convent that stood on this ground?
Joseph Bonaparte, installed as king of Spain during the French occupation, ordered the Convent of the Encarnación demolished on 28 April 1810 to make way for a public plaza, scattering its Augustinian nuns to other convents in the city.
What was found beneath the Plaza de la Encarnación?
Excavations uncovered Roman, Visigothic and Muslim remains, including a Roman gate that once stood at the center of the square, part of the northern boundary wall of the Roman city of Isbiliya. These are now displayed in the Antiquarium museum beneath Metropol Parasol.
Where this came from
1
Sevillapedia — A Roman gate once stood where you are standing
2
tuguiadesevilla.com — Roman, Visigothic and Muslim remains lie beneath your feet
