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The Alhambra (Arabic: "the red") is an ancient palace and fortress complex of the Moorish monarchs of Granada, in southern Spain (known as Al-Andalus when the fortress was constructed), occupying a hilly terrace on the south-eastern border of the city of Granada. It was the residence of the Muslim kings of Granada and their court, but is currently a museum exhibiting exquisite Islamic architecture.
This terrace or plateau, which measures about 740 m (2430 ft) in length by 205 m (674 ft) at its greatest width, extends from W.N.W. to E.S.E., and covers an area of about 142,000 m?. It is enclosed by a strongly fortified wall, which is flanked by thirteen towers. The river Darro, which foams through a deep ravine on the north, divides the plateau from the Albaic?n district of Granada; the Assabica valley, containing the Alhambra Park, on the west and south, and beyond this valley the almost parallel ridge of Monte Mauror, separate it from the Antequeruela district.
The name Alhambra, signifying in Arabic the red (Al Hamra), is probably derived from the colour of the sun-dried tapia, or bricks made of fine gravel and clay, of which the outer walls are built. Some authorities, however, hold that it commemorates the red flare of the torches by whose light the work of construction was carried on nightly for many years; others associate it with the name of the founder, Muhammed Ibn Al Ahmar; and others derive it from the Arabic Dar al Amra, House of the Master. The palace was built chiefly between 1248 and 1354, in the reigns of Al Ahmar and his successors, all of the Nasrid caliph; but even the names of the principal artists employed are either unknown or doubtful.
Patio of the palace of Charles VThe splendid arabesques of the interior are ascribed, among other kings, to Yusef I, Mohammed V, Ismail I, etc. After the Christian conquest of the city in 1492 by Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella of Castile (parents of Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII's first wife), the conquerors began to alter the Alhambra. The open work was filled up with whitewash, the painting and gilding effaced, the furniture soiled, torn or removed. Charles V (1516–1556) rebuilt portions in the Renaissance style of the period, and destroyed the greater part of the winter palace to make room for a Renaissance-style structure which has never been completed. Philip V (1700–1746) italianised the rooms, and completed his palace right in the middle of what had been the Moorish building. He ran up partitions which blocked up whole apartments. In subsequent centuries under Spanish authorities, Moorish art was further defaced; and in 1812 some of the towers were blown up by the French under Count Sebastiani, while the whole buildings narrowly escaped the same fate. Napoleon had tried to blow up the whole complex. Just before his plan was carried out, a soldier who secretly wanted the plan of Napoleon — his commander — to fail, defused the explosives and thus saved the Alhambra for posterity.
In 1821 an earthquake caused further damage. The work of restoration undertaken in 1828 by the architect Jos? Contreras was endowed in 1830 by Ferdinand VII; and after the death of Contreras in 1847, it was continued with fair success by his son Rafael (d. 1890), and his grandson Mariano.
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