23/05_The geometry of the Alhambra

Alhambra is an Andalusian palace and a fortress situated in the city of Granada, in the South of Spain. It is marvellously decorated with geometric forms that make this place unique in history, being the last place and city to be conquered back by the Christians in Spain in 1942, when it became the Royal Court of Isabel and Fernando The Catholic. 

Although it was originally constructed in AD 889 on the remains of Roman fortifications, it was not only the mid-13^th century when it was rebuilt. Even so, we can think about how long geometry has been present in our history. In 1984 it was awarded as UNESCO World heritage site, a tittle very important because it warrants a proper conservation and special care. We are going to do a small journey through its numerous rooms to study the different geometric decorations. Are you ready?

            Through geometric figures are created continuous duplications that all together create beautiful mosaics as the one we see in the first picture:

Mosaico de la entrada a la Sala del Trono

This mosaic is created with the same figure coloured in black and in white representing a sky full of stars, because with this form they would represent the celestial bodies. Could tell which type of figure it is according of its number of sides?

a) Regular pentagon

b) irregular octagon

c) Irregular pentagon

d) Regular octagon

We find another type of mosaic more colourful in the The Arrayanes courtyard that contains hexagons and stars:

Mosaic in the The Arrayanes courtyard

What type of start is the one represented in this mosaic?

a) Pentagonal star

b) Octagonal star

c) Hexagonal star

d) Movie star

There is also in Alhambra palace another type of decoration that is not based on the repetition of geometric patterns but, on contrast, they have diverse figures arranged under different criteria. This tiling is a wonderful example of it:

 

Tiling in the Salon of Comares

In the middle of the image we can see a star, is it different from the last one? Which type of geometric figure is it?

a) Hexagonal star

b) Pentagonal star

c) Sports star

d) Octagonal star

This type of decoration is very similar with the one that already exist in some courtyard in Andalusia… right? We can see an example of nowadays tiling decoration here:

Example of nowadays Andalusian courtyard tiling

But let’s move on because there are still some other decorations that will remember us even more the Andalusian courtyards and that have, undeniably, an aesthetic origin in the Arab culture.

Tiling in the Nasrid Palaces

            Lastly, another type of geometric decoration, that in this case is three-dimensional, form regular polygons, lattice… Differently from the previous ones, this decoration is not painted but it was elaborated through carving techniques in the stone through artisans that used ornamentations in this emblematic, widely-known monument.

           

Lattice work in the inside of the Palace

References

Dobaño Martínez, L. (2017). La Alhambra como espacio didáctico. La Rioja: Universidad Internacional de La Rioja.

Canabelas Rodríguez, D. (1988). El techo del Salón de Comares en la Alhambra. Decoración, Policromía, Simbolismo y Etimología.  Granada: Patronato de la Alhambra y Generalife.

Castel, M. (2016).  Los mosaicos y la geometría de la Alhambra. In Legado nazarí blog. Retrieved from  http://legadonazari.blogspot.com/2016/07/los-mosaicos-y-la-geometria-de-la.html