Around that time, critics and historians believed that the Modern Movement had failed to offer adequate solutions to the matter of intervening in historical cities. How to coexist with preesistenze ambientali was still a red-hot issue in the early 1980s, with enlightened administrations making efforts to tread very carefully when acting upon historical centers. Víctor Pérez Escolano, architect and urban councilor in Seville, recommended Rafael Moneo to the insurance company Previsión Española for its delicate site in front of the Torre del Oro. Rafael Moneo's idea was to engrave the Previsión Española building into the historical city by meeting strictly stylistic criteria, and by exploring the alternative of the deep formal matrixes which he noticed in the city's architectural character. The city as a whole would prevail over a limited view of the notion of context. But the contribution of morphological studies to the construction of the city is also present in a project like this, which respects the city’s alignments and hints at what was once the outline of the city walls. It is also interesting to point out that the building deliberately avoids any direct relationship with the Torre del Oro, and that, by giving absolute priority to the texture and diversity of the materials used, Previsión Española is a good example of the architect’s resistance to the minimalist monolithic architecture so common back then. (Rafael Moneo)