The Alhambra

Product Information

Since you are here, we would like to share our vision for the future of travel - and the direction Culture Trip is moving in. Culture Trip launched in 2011 with a simple yet passionate mission: to inspire people to go beyond their boundaries and experience what makes a place, its people and its culture special and meaningful — and this is still in our DNA today. We are proud that, for more than a decade, millions like you have trusted our award-winning recommendations by people who deeply understand what makes certain places and communities so special. The Alhambra: a series of tales and sketches of the Moors and Spaniards was published in May 1832 in the United States by publishers Lea & Carey and concurrently in England by Henry Colburn, and attributed to " Geoffrey Crayon". [7] Consisting of a series of essays and short fiction pieces, it was referred to as his "Spanish Sketch Book". [2] Shortly after the book's publication, Irving returned to New York after a 17-year absence from the United States. [7] VERDICT: I’m such a fan of Manuel's books, I think it's his communication skills from a life time of teaching that comes across. The photography, history, maps, diagrams, explainations that wrap around each pattern construction add to the brilliant richess of the book. PATTERN INSTRUCTION: No compass & straight edge instruction, but for those who draw digitally, you may find it especially useful as all the information you need is there in the many many diagrams.

Located in Granada, one of the most important cities of the south Iberian Peninsula, the Alhambra was built at the top of Sabika Hill, a foothill of the mountainous massif of Sierra Nevada. As explained in our Alhambra books, the oldest part of the palatine city was built in the 13 th century to house the leaders of the Nasrid kingdom of Granada, the last bastion of Muslim power in the Iberian Peninsula. PATTERN INSTRUCTION: Yes! 36 in total patterns step by step! I'm yet to work through the book, but I recognise many of the construction menthods, so am reassurred that the Manuel doesnt change or simplify or distort the correct proportions of the patterns. This is highly valuable and important as we are as ever passing on the mathematics and geometry from these namesless masters from centuries gone by. To understand why Moorish architecture exists in Spain, it's helpful to know a little bit about the history and geography of Spain. Archeological evidence from centuries before the birth of Christ (B.C.) suggests the pagan Celts from the northwest and the Phoenicians from the East settled the area we call Spain — the Greeks called these ancient tribes Iberians. The ancient Romans have left the most archeological evidence in what is today known as Europe's Iberian Peninsula. A peninsula is almost entirely surrounded by water, like the state of Florida, so the Iberian Peninsula has always been easily accessible to whatever power invaded.Jones, Brian Jay. Washington Irving: An American Original. New York: Arcade Publishing, 2008: 250. ISBN 978-1-55970-836-4 The city of Alhambra, California is named after the book. In 1874, the daughter of Benjamin Wilson was reading the book and encouraged him to use the name for his new Los Angeles suburban development. [14] [15] PATTERN INSTRUCTION: Yes, but not as we know it! Castera works very differently to how I and many of us do. But, I have used this book to work his way and it helped me understand how to access and draw the patterns my way too. The patterns specifically relate to those in Morocco, but there is enough variety and richness in this to still make it a useful. If you are an absolute beginner, you can easily start with this book and progress to much more complex patterns, if you don’t mind skipping the compass and ruler part. However the author doesn’t change or simplify or distort the Alhambra patterns. This is KEY! Islamic Geometric patterns look a certain way, each shape has certain angles, symmetries and proportions that means that they are correct individually, they are correct together as a fuller pattern and correct as a system to draw many patterns.

Published December 2011, 2nd Edition 2015 by The Alhambra and Generalife Trust and EDILUX s.l. ( ISBN 9788486827). ACQUIRED: I bought this from the Alhambra book shop in Granada in 2019. Another difficult one to acquire outside of Spain. VERDICT: This is easier to follow than Daud Sutton’s book, but there are far fewer constructions (40 ish compared to 200 ish!). So I obviously have to have BOTH. I know some people are overwhelmed by these drawings that come with minimal or coded explanation. So this book is definitely pitched at a more basic level – very much suitable for beginners. PATTERN INSTRUCTION: Yes! 90+ patterns step by step! using 600 or so illustrations. I'm yet to work through the book, but I recognise many of the construction menthods, so am reassurred that the Manuel doesnt change or simplify or distort the correct proportions of the patterns. This is highly valuable and important as we are as ever passing on the mathematics and geometry from these namesless masters from centuries gone by.

The essential and the most practical guide

Alhambra has restored three Nasrid Royal Palaces (Palacios Nazaries) — Comares Palace (Palacio de Comares); Palace of the Lions (Patio de los Leones); and the Partal Palace. The Charles V palace is not Nasrid but was built, abandoned, and restored for centuries, even up to the 19th century. In 2017, Spanish animation producer Pedro Alonso Pablos made an animated miniseries featuring some of the Tales of the Alhambra: The Arab Astrologer, The three beautiful princesses and The rose of the Alhambra. I haven’t needed to read the text to access the content, but on occasion, have used the google translate app to translate any text I really want to understand. VERDICT: The actual books are stunning (thye seem to live on my desk catching the light!). The content is just wow. So well put together, the visual communication is brilliant; I know Serap is so good at this anyway, always making me see things in a different way, making connections between things I had seen separate. There are so many architectural photos I’ve not seen too. The story telling of the patterns, the step by steps, the different renderings of patterns and their variations, so very beautiful and comprehensive. The three volumes cover six, four, twelve, five and tenfold, so beautifully. I can’t wait to actually get drawing.

Notice the angle of the windows leading up to the dome. The engineering challenge was to put a round dome on top of a square structure. Indenting the circle, creating an eight-pointed star, was the answer. The decorative and functional use of the muqarnas, a type of corbel to support the height, is similar to the use of pendentives. In the West, this architectural detail is often referred to as honeycomb or stalactites, from the Greek stalaktos, as its design appears to "drip" like icicles, cave formations, or like honey: The first folio (1842) contains hundreds of illustrations, translations of Arabic script, rendered in the angular Kufic style on the building, and an essay on the palace by Pascual de Gayangos, a scholar of Spanish Arab civilization. The second volume, with fifty chromolithographic images of decorative fragments, was created to supply designers, ornamentalists, and manufacturers with ornamental details to study and copy. This publication engendered enormous popular enthusiasm for the Islamic style, and European and American designers eagerly copied its illustrations. The book ultimately established Jones as a leading authority on ornament. The full title reads as follows: Plans, elevations, sections, and details of the Alhambra, from drawings taken on the spot in 1834 by Jules Goury, and in 1834 and 1837 by Owen Jones. With a complete translation of the Arabic inscriptions, and an historical notice of the kings of Granada from the conquest of that city by the Arabs to the expulsion of the Moors, by Pasqual de Gayangos.This publication is the most remarkable, colorful, and accurate study of the Alhambra, an ornate palace in Spain constructed between 1238 and 1358 by the Moorish ruler Al Ahmar and his successors. Owen Jones, the well-known British architect, designer, and theorist, initially encountered Islamic patterns and architecture during his travels to Greece, Turkey, the Holy Land, and Egypt in the 1830s. He shared his new found interest with Jules Goury, a young French architect. On a visit to the Alhambra in 1834, the two men decided to conduct an exhaustive study that would accurately illustrate the intricate geometric patterns and shapes of the palace’s decorative ornaments. Goury died in 1834 of cholera, but Jones persevered with the study as a tribute to Goury. The illustrations in these elaborate volumes, dated 1836, are the earliest examples of color lithography in England. PATTERN INSTRUCTION: Yes, good for those with a bit of experience (if you're a beginner, get that experience by diving into my YouTube videos and then return to this book!). Even though there are only a few instructions for beginners who want to draw a pattern from scratch step by step there is plenty to read, digest and enjoy. With a bit of experience, it’s good to try and draw from the diagrams in this book that force you to think and deconstruct some aspects of drawing the pattern. It’s an excellent endeavour that helps you to progress in drawing patterns.