The Puerta del Perdón in the Cathedral of Seville

In November 2025, Factum Foundation completed the high-resolution 3D recording of the arch of the Puerta del Perdón at the Cathedral of Seville—one of the most distinctive examples of Almohad architecture preserved in the city. Today the arch forms the entrance to the Cathedral’s main courtyard, but it originally served as the principal portal of the Great Mosque of Seville (giving access to the main courtyard or sahn), making it a rare survivor of the city’s Islamic architectural past.

Imran Khan recording the Puerta del Perdón © Factum Foundation

The carved plaster that covers the interior of the arch was recorded using a combination of close-range photogrammetry and LiDAR 3D scanning. This approach captures both the geometry of the structure and surface detail of the yesería with exceptional precision. The recording was made possible thanks to an agreement with the Cabildo de la Catedral de Sevilla, which now has a full digital dataset in their archives.

The work is part of Factum Foundation’s ongoing initiative to record and re-materialise significant historic yesería in Spain, often in collaboration with academic institutions and linked to preservation, training and research programmes. This work in Sevilla was organised by Casilda Ybarra and carried out by Imran Khan with help from Martina Giorgi, a Master’s student in Art History at Sapienza University of Rome completing her Erasmus internship at Factum.