Seville - Kansas City "sister cities"

So I thought I would write a post that compares the architecture of Kansas City to Seville. I wrote a little about this in the Seville post (below), but Ill explain it again. In Kansas City there is a district of town called the "country club district." It was built in the 1920s as a suburban housing district. It's centerpiece was the "Plaza," one if the nations first suburban shopping districts. Today, the plaza is very urban (it's only 15 minutes away from downtown) and the country club district is considered an urban neighborhood (one of the classiest in the city). The houses of the district are all very well built and full of details. All kinds of different styles exist there, French, German, Spanish, English, and some American bungalow style houses too. The Plaza its self is modeled after Seville's old town. The plaza is a great example of how architecture can make a place successful. While the plaza started off a just another shopping district, it has become the most exclusive shopping district in the city, and one of the top in the nation. The way it was planned makes it an incredibly charming place to be...Ive been to almost every major city in the country and it's hard to think of a nicer shopping area. I think that a comparison of pictures from Seville and KC is the best way to show the similarities.

The Giralda tower in KC, then the one in Seville. I think it is kind of funny that in Spain this tower is part of a cathedral and in America it is attached to what is now the Cheesecake Factory.
Seville
The Light fixture in the plaza outside the cathedral has also been replicated in Kansas City. It is definantly a very cool design.

KCSeville The architecture of the Shops themselves aren't based on any particular buildings, just designed in the "Seville" style. Ill just show some pictures of the shops, then some pictures of buildings I saw that I suspect influenced their design.

KC

Seville

One thing that makes Kansas City's Plaza more unique than Seville is the way it is transformed at Christmas time. Every year the Plaza is lined with Christmas lights that accentuate every tower, window, and other architectural details. There is something like 80 miles of Christmas lights and they take literally months to install and remove.

So as it mentioned in the Seville post, at least Seville named a road after KC...even though its a pretty nasty road. One thing that Seville took from Kansas City was our statue, "the scout." This statue over looks our downtown from a huge park and pays homage to the Shawnee Indians that once occupied our city's area. Seville had a very scaled down version of the statue along the boulevard. It's so small in fact, that i almost missed it...but it caught my eye the second time I walked past it.The Scout, overlooking Downtown KCSeville's tiny version of the statue overlooking the ugly high rises of KC Ave.