Mayor José Luis Sanz has unveiled the second plaque on the Paseo de los Poetas del 27 on Tetuán Street, dedicated to Luis Cernuda. The event is part of the project that recovers the literary memory of the city.
On Wednesday, Seville's mayor, José Luis Sanz, inaugurated the plaque dedicated to poet Luis Cernuda on the Paseo de los Poetas of the Generation of 27, located on the central Tetuán Street. This is the second piece of this municipal project, following the one placed on June 15 in honour of Ignacio Sánchez Mejías.
During the event, Sanz described Cernuda as “possibly the most universal poet that Seville has produced” and emphasised his key role within the Generation of 27: “Without Cernuda, without his gaze and without his voice, the Generation of 27 would not have been the same. Seville has a debt of memory with him that we begin to settle today in the streets of the city.”
The plaque, made of bronze and measuring 35x35 centimetres, is integrated into the pavement of Tetuán Street, where the historic Ateneo de Sevilla was located. The project, promoted by the Urban Planning Management, plans to install a plaque for each member of the literary group, turning the street into a cultural and emotional journey.
The mayor recalled Cernuda's connection to Law, as the poet enrolled in this field at the University of Seville in 1919. It was in the classrooms of the Faculty where he met Professor Pedro Salinas, who introduced him to the literary world and connected him with Juan Ramón Jiménez and the other authors of the 27.
For this reason, Sanz thanked the Illustrious Bar Association of Seville, represented by its dean, Óscar Fernández, for sponsoring the plaque. “That the Bar Association is the one making this tribute possible has special value, as it is the institution that inherited those Law classrooms from which the poet emerged,” the mayor pointed out.
The Paseo de los Poetas project has a participatory nature: institutions, companies, groups, and citizens can sponsor the plaques of the different members of the group. Currently, more than twenty plaques have already been sponsored, including those of Federico García Lorca, Rafael Alberti, Jorge Guillén, Vicente Aleixandre, Pedro Salinas, and María Zambrano.
Sanz took the opportunity during the event to announce that the rehabilitation works of the Casa Luis Cernuda will conclude in the coming days. Its opening is scheduled for December 16, the date on which the centenary commemoration of the Generation of 27 will officially begin, coinciding with the anniversary of the historic meeting of 1927.
The commemoration will extend until December 2027 and will include a major exhibition at the Royal Artillery Factory, in collaboration with the Junta de Andalucía, and a congress jointly organised with the University of Seville, the Ateneo de Sevilla, and the Royal Seville Academy of Fine Letters. The Ateneo, the institution that made the foundational meeting of 1927 possible, will be one of the main actors in the programming.
The mayor wanted to highlight the collective nature of the project: “This tribute cannot be just from the City Council, but from all of Seville.” The Paseo de los Poetas will be progressively completed until all the poets of the 27 are present in the city that welcomed them.
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