Reframing the Alhambra by Olga Bush

Author:Olga Bush
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

CHAPTER FOUR

‘Textile Architecture’ in the Cuarto Dorado

I left Sīstān with merchants of fine robes.

The robe I bore was spun within my heart

And woven in my soul. A silken robe,

Composed of words that eloquence designed.

Farrukhī Sīstānī (fourth/eleventh century)1

1

The present-day visitor gains access to the courtyard now called the Court of Comares through the mishwār, or council chamber, and the adjoining space that was originally a small patio (Figures 4.1–4.3: nos 14 and 14a, respectively; hereafter, ‘no.’ refers to a space in Figures 4.1–4.3). Between the two, there stands a small precinct built during the reign of Yūsuf I and altered under the patronage of his son and successor, Muammad V, whose north–south orientation marks a clear division between the east and west areas of the palatial complex. Known as the Cuarto Dorado (the Golden Room), the very name of the precinct attests to the history of alterations in the Alhambra (no. 15, nos 15a–c; and Figure 4.4). Even before a miniscule patio north of the mishwār was incorporated into the space of the mishwār proper in the sixteenth century (no. 14a),2 the hall on the north side of the Cuarto Dorado (no. 15b) was outfitted with a heavily painted and gilded ceiling, executed in 1499,3 which gave rise to the modern name of both the hall and the precinct as a whole. The hall is an oblong room with three doorways that serve as entrances and three windows on the opposite north wall, aligned axially with the doors and with the three-arch arcade of the portico in front. In the light of the absence of alcoves on the short east and west walls of this room, it has been suggested that the Cuarto Dorado might have served as a waiting room for visitors.4

Proceeding along the longitudinal axis of the precinct from that hall, one comes to a contiguous portico (no. 15c) followed by a small adjacent patio (no. 15) enclosed on the three remaining sides and paved with marble slabs. The patio includes a small central marble water basin with a jet. Alterations to the second floor above the hall of the Cuarto Dorado that took place in the post-Nasrid period, as well as to the rooms adjoining the patio on the east and west sides, preclude us from knowing the original elevation and decoration of the precinct, except for the south side where the patio is bounded by an elaborately decorated wall, known as the Façade of Comares (no. 15a).5 Two spaces beyond the south wall are accessed through twin doorways. Angel C. López López and Antonio Orihuela Uzal have proposed that south of the doorway to the west stood a small room that led to a qubba housing the royal treasury (nos 17 and 17a).6 Later this area was partially destroyed, and it now survives in a greatly altered form.7 The doorway to the east leads to a small room (no. 16) reserved for guards from which one exits to the east through a passage that changes its axis three times (no.

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