Overview

This first of two volumes, based on the 19th-century publication of Owen Jones's plates and text of the Alhambra, contains 22 chapters with 36 Owen Jones plates and over 200 new figures giving chronological ground plans, elevations and analyses of the architecture, decoration and epigraphy. It provides a general introduction to Nasrid art and architecture, explains the Nasrid proportional system of design, and discusses the early Nasrid palaces and the great city gates. The second volume contains 18 chapters, with 80 Owen Jones plates, 6 colour restitutions of the Facade of Comares and over 70 new figures, with elevations and analyses of the building and decoration of the Palacio de Comares and Palacio del Riyad. It then studies Owen Jones's plates of Morisco work and Carlos V's Renaissance palace, and ends with a survey of the Romantic travellers and modern reconstruction and administration, to bring the story of the Alhambra up to 1995. During his research for the book, Professor Fernandez-Puertas has made some discoveries. He has, for example, resolved one of the great enigmas of Nasrid art by discovering the geometric proportional system on which the entire Alhambra architecture and decoration are based. The designs are at times so intricate that they baffle even professional mathematicians. Professor Fernandez-Puertas has cracked the geometric code and discovered that the marvels of the Alhambra are built on a proportional system that is essentially incommensurable and not based on fixed units like metres or inches. This has involved making hundreds of analytical figures, many of which are included in this book. Professor Fernandez-Puertas is also the first to discover the chronological order in which the Alhambra palaces were built. He has collated much fragmentary information in order to reconstruct a picture of court life within the Alhambra and the personalities of its sultans and poet-viziers. The book thus contains the heart of three centuries of Nasrid art, as well as providing a history of the palatine city from the 9th century to the present day: the pre-Nasrid Alhambra, the Nasrid Alhambra and the Christian Alhambra. The book is based on many years of research, and covers 11 centuries of medieval, modern and contemporary history.

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9780863565878

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Reviews

'A truly extraordinary achievement . . . demonstrates a history which has never been clarified before and provides a truly stunning sequence of drawings. Both drawings and explanations are novel and original.' --Olegar Grabar, Times Literary Supplement <br>'A splendid volume . . . A true model for analytical writing about architecture.' --J.M.Rogers, Bulletin of the school of Oriental and African Studies <br>

Author Information

Antonio Fernandez-Puertas has been studying the Alhambra palaces since 1968 and was director of the Museo Nacional de Arte Hispanomusulman until 1992. In 1980-81 he won the chair of Muslim Art at the University of Granada. He is acknowledged as the outstanding world authority on Nasrid art and the Alhambra.

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