Alhambra, the Mexuar

Granada:
Alhambra, the Mexuar

The Patio of the Golden Room.

The Mexuar was the parts of the Royal Palace where the sultans conducted the everyday administration and business. It is far from the most striking parts of Alhambra, slightly modest in its decoration. Visitors are allowed into a number of its rooms, like the reception hall completed in 1365, and the Golden Room, which was only open for the staff of the palace.
The most attractive part of the Mexuar is the Patio of the Golden Room, wits its facade to the Serallo.

Granada: Alhambra Palace

Granada:
Alhambra Palace

The Alhambra Palace overlooking the city of Granada, stands out as the most famous example of Moorish architecture, and perhaps it is the most known Muslim construction all in all.



The Alhambra seen from east. The round structure is the 16th century Palacio of Carlos 5. To the far left of it lies the Torre de Comares, part of the Serallo, and where the Salón de Embajadores lies. In between is the Lions' Court and the Mexuar. In the back from this lies the Alcazaba, overlooking the city of Granada.

This palace structure was started after the Reconquista, the reconquering of Spain performed by the Christian kings, started. This adds to its aura. While the illiterate Christians were advancing, Spain reached its highest cultural level ever, but under the Muslim rulers. The slender structure of Alhambra, the breathtaking details, the celebration of life, the mixture of nature in men's design, all underline what tragedy the return of Christianity in Spain was to be for centuries to come.
Alhambra was started as late as 13th century, but Alhambra consists of palaces built by several rulers, each had his own. The carrying idea behind several of the buildings of Alhambra is nothing less than an attempt to create a duplica of Paradise on earth. The romantic design is made up of a mixture of slender columnar arcades, fountains, and light-reflecting water basins. Most prominent is the Lion Court.
Granada was lost to the Christians in 1492, and when the Reyos Católicos, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella died some years later, Granada was chosen for their burial. Perhaps the Muslim dreams of Paradise moved even the cold hearts of the two?
The Alhambra consists of 3 parts: The Royal Palace, which is the most famous, which in itself consists of 3 parts: The Mexuar, the Serallo and the Harem, where the Lions' Court is the centre. In addition to the Alhambra comes the gardens of Generalife and the fortress of Alcazaba.

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The Alhambra, Granada

The Alhambra, Granada

Though the origins of both important monuments of Granada, the Alhambra and Generalife, are not clear, there are certain remains from the 9th century, the Alhambra’s most brilliant creations date from the Nasrid Empire and the reign of Carlos V, between the 13th and 16th centuries.


In its palaces, from the window of the mirador de Daraxa to the mottled stone columns of the Carlos V palace, everything in this complex is designed, planned and executed with only the thought of perfection in mind. This perfection may approach that of the Koran or Sunna or find itself closer to the Neo-Platonism of the Renaissance.


In the Alhambra, an Islamic world is sustained over classical thought, a fact not only perceptible in the symbolic order of the emperor’s palace; the Lion Court (Patio de los Leones) also represents a monastic cloister, organized according to the Golden section, the most highly classical of all proportions.


Naturally, there are different ways of interpreting the Alhambra: the visitor may, for example, separate each one of its component elements, gardens and palaces. However, it is surely more revealing to approach its mystery as one who enters an unknown city, uncovering its gates, walkways, streets and buildings, elements of an organism which functions with the sophistication and power of those who dwell within it.


For that reason, the Alhambra would represent both acropolis and paradise.
Set apart and distant, yet ever present, the granadinos climbed up to the Alhambra when they sought something from power, even if they could merely enter the Mexuar, the palaces’ public area.

Location map of Alhambra

Selection Province City center

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The rest, as we all know, is a labyrinth into which only the prince and his rank could accede: from the mathematical and cabalistic decoration of its tiles and plasterwork to the movement of the stars in the honey-combed muquarnas of the sala de los Abencerrajes.


Carlos V understood it all to perfection and repeated the pattern in a palace, squared to the four cardinal points, in which the emperor’s force could best manifest itself in an inscribed circle, the symbol of divine power. If doubts remain, the facade’s decoration should recall the work of Hercules, a myth with whom the emperor would often associate. High above the palaces one finds a place where our dreams merge with water in the most beautiful of the world’s gardens, the Generalife.


Yannat al-arif from the Nasrid era, is the epitome of rest and relaxation, a summer palace situated on the slopes of the so called Cerro del Sol. In reality, the most impressive part of this complex are the gardens themselves since the buildings, intended for private use, are hardly comparable to the rest of the Nasrid palaces.


However, the masterpiece of the gardens is an architectural construction where dreams merge with water; a magnificent stairway down which water eternally flows.


Whether it be the entrancing ripple of its fountains, everpresent but never monotonous, or the freshness resplendent in the rectangular Patio de Acequia and others, or the light that is filtered or reflected within, here water awakens our senses.

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