Royal Tobacco Factory

The Royal Tobacco Factory is an 18th-century stone building in Seville, southern Spain. Since the 1950s it has been the seat of the rectorate of the University of Seville. Prior to that, it was, as its name indicates, a tobacco factory: the most prominent such institution in Europe, and a lineal descendant of Europe's first tobacco factory, which was located nearby. It is one of the most notable and splendid examples of industrial architecture from the era of Spain's Antiguo Régimen.AntecedentsThe Spanish encountered the tobacco plant almost immediately upon their first arrival in the Americas in 1492. The city of Seville, home to the Casa de Contratación (The House of Trade), held a monopoly on commerce with the Americas. At the beginning of the 16th century the first tobacco manufacturers established themselves in Seville, the first anywhere in Europe. Initially, they were dispersed through the city, but were eventually concentrated in one place—facing the Church of Saint Peter—for sanitary reasons and to facilitate state control of the activity. In the 18th century, the royal government decided to build the present large building immediately outside the city walls.ConstructionThis 18th-century industrial building was, at the time it was built the second largest building in Spain, second only to the royal residence El Escorial. It remains one of the largest and most architecturally distinguished industrial buildings ever built in that country, and one of the oldest such buildings to survive.