Preview

Creation Year
1974
Image ID
CS.094
Alternate Identifier
B49.275
Subcollection
CS: Granada
Abstract
A church in the city of Granada, Spain. In the 16th century a series of Renaissance buildings were commissioned in Granada by the Christian court, which included the palace of Charles V.
Description
When Granada finally fell to Isabella and Ferdinand in 1492, the Alhambra was designated a royal palace for the Christian royalty—a status that it was to retain until 1868. When Charles V assumed kingship, he commissioned the architect Pedro Machuca to build a Renaissance style palace for him in the Alhambra in 1526. The work however was abandoned after several fruitless attempts at completion. It was only in the twentieth century that the work commissioned by Charles was completed. Due to its location in the middle of the Alhambra, the palace has traditionally been disparaged and criticized. However, in the words of Robert Irwin: “In fact it is a fine, imposing building, but on the wrong site.” The Alhambra as a whole is one of the most fantasized monuments of Islamic Architecture, captivating the imagination of a vast number of writers and artists, including Washington Irving and the French author Chateaubriand, to name just a couple. Indeed, some parts of the Alhambra, such as the Court of the Lions, are commonly written about examples of the most beautiful architecture in the world. The palace-complex as it stands today was built mostly in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries under the Nasrid dynasty (1238-1492), in particular by Yusuf I (1333-54) and his son Muhammad V (1354-59, 1362-1391). Out of six royal palaces, only two survive (the Comares palace and the Palace of the Lions). A summer palace called the Generalife (from the Arabic jannat al-arif, ‘the garden of the architect’) is also extant. – SK
Image Notes
Photograph created 1974. Photograph processed June 1974. Formerly catalogued as B49.275. Notes written on the slide or index: Granada - Church.
Image Format
35 mm slide
Geographic Reference
Granada, Spain