By Isla Quinn
Red walls, running water, small pieces of wood. Three things to hold in mind.
The red one
Wikipedia says the Alhambra was begun in 1238 by Muhammad I Ibn al-Ahmar, the first Nasrid emir and founder of the Emirate of Granada. The name comes from the Arabic al-Ḥamrāʼ, meaning the red one, which the article links to the reddish walls and their iron-rich clay. It describes a complex roughly 700 to 740 metres long and up to about 205 metres wide, covering around 142,000 square metres. There are three main palace sections, the Mexuar, the Comares Palace and the Palace of the Lions, with the Alcazaba fortress at the western tip. The Generalife, a former Nasrid country estate with orchards and gardens, lies to the east.
The last Nasrid sultan surrendered in January 1492, Wikipedia says. Ferdinand and Isabella then made their royal residence there, and Christopher Columbus received approval for his expedition at the site.
What UNESCO says
UNESCO inscribed the Alhambra in 1984 and extended the listing in 1994 to take in the Generalife and the Albayzín. Its description calls the Alhambra a palatial fortress and residence of the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, and the Generalife the emirs’ rural retreat with exceptional gardens. It describes the Albayzín as a historic residential quarter that preserves a Moorish urban plan, and says the quarter blends Islamic design with later Renaissance and Baroque Christian elements. It praises the plaster, ceramic and wood work with Arabic writing, which it calls “talking architecture”, and the hydraulic engineering that supported the gardens and fountains. The summary we read gives the protected area and buffer zone in numbers that look transposed, so we are not quoting them.
Taracea, the wood inlay
A travel writer says that marquetry, called taracea, reached Granada with the Moors from North Africa and has changed very little in the city since the fourteenth century. The writer gives the word’s origin as an Arabic term meaning inlay. The article describes cutting bone, metal and woods such as mahogany, ebony, rosewood and walnut into small geometric shapes, then gluing them together along the grain into symmetrical patterned rods. It says current designs match those used in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to decorate furniture, ceilings and doors in the Alhambra and other historic buildings.
The same writer says the craft survives in only two places in the world, Damascus and Granada, and that Granada has only a couple of producers left. That is a travel blog’s claim, and we have not found a second source for the count. Another guide site describes marquetry as the craft most identified with Granada, with inlay of materials from bone and mother-of-pearl to amber and ivory, and says most steps are still done by hand, with some cutting and sanding steps modernised.
The market and the pottery
A shopping guide says the Alcaicería, Granada’s main tourist market, was rebuilt in the 1840s after a fire destroyed the original Nasrid silk market. It calls the Alcaicería a tourist market with many mass-produced items. The same guide describes Fajalauza pottery as white tin-glazed ware with blue and green decoration, traditionally with pomegranates and flowers. Another site says the potters use the cuerda seca technique, with manganese painted in a greasy medium. We have not checked who still makes either craft.
Before you buy
We have not profiled any maker, workshop or shop in Granada, and we will not name one we cannot source. If a piece is called taracea, ask what it is made of, who cut the pieces, and whether it was cut by hand or by machine. The shopping guide warns that industrial pieces exist at low prices, and that is as far as we can take the point, because we are not quoting prices.
Roam first. Shop later.
Andalusian makers can find out what’s involved at /sell-with-sephari/