'Michael George Hartley, this is a nasty dark little room. We are not happy in it.'

So begins Peter O'Toole in David Lean's 1962 epic, Lawrence of Arabia, where much of the film was not actually shot in Arabia but here in Seville. Lawrence uttered those lines in the basement of what is now La Casa de la Ciencia, the city’s science museum where this site is based. 

The trick is, Mr Potter...

A little background:

The science museum makes up part of the Peruvian Pavillion and was designed by Manuel Piqueras Cotolí for the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929. It took first prize in the competition and looks like it was built for a film set from the ground up .

The space is shared by the the Peruvian Consulate and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), the country’s largest scientific research body. Unfortunately, but perhaps sensibly, the basement where Lawrence lit the match has long been converted into a white-washed meeting room for Greenpeace to convene.

Only in the past few years have 1800 square metres of indoor space and 1350 square metres of garden been handed over and converted for use as a museum. The upshot of the pavilion being taken over by scientists is that they’ve filled it with things like brain coral, whale bones, quartz and scarab beetles.

Aforementioned beetles

So this site is going to be a log of sorts about what they’ve done, what they’re doing and anything else that can tenuously be linked to the museum. 

On that note, camels can take centre stage for a moment. The ones which were brought over from Africa during the filming of Lawrence of Arabia weren't given a return ticket, instead being released into the sprawling expanse of the nearby Doñana Park. Thanks to which, there are now dromedaries inhabiting Andalucia whose forbearers bore Peter O'Toole and company across the desert.

Lawrence and immigrant dromedary

More to follow, soon...