Álvaro Vega I Córdoba, (EFE) Late-Baroque façade from the 18th century is an addition to the original façade from the bank of the Guadalquivir river located to the south of the monument.
After twenty years of work, in three months, according to the commitment of the mayor of Córdoba, José María Bellido, for the first five days of his second term, the second most visited monument, after the Mosque-Cathedral, will undergo a radical change. Both from the point of view of understanding the whole and of accessibility.
This is how one of the protagonists of the process understands it from the Municipal Urbanism Management, the archaeologist Juan Murillo. Which considers the change of access from the current location in the Torre de los Leones to the original from the 12th century, which is the oldest dated to date in the monument, will guarantee “both the logic of the visit to be able to understand the building as well as something fundamental in the 21st century, such as that all citizens, even if they have some kind of mobility difficulty, can access the entire route”.
An Almohad door hidden behind mortar
During a visit to the monument, Murillo told EFE that the discovery of the Almohad doorway hidden behind the mortar in the Patio de las Mujeres, so called because it housed the women’s area, first of the Inquisition prison, and then of the civilian, has transcendental importance.
He explained that “it has made it possible to demonstrate the hypotheses that the work teams that are intervening in the Alcázar have been proposing for some years. And it is that what we know as the current Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos actually dates back to the 12th century. In Almohad times”.
The recovered access from the riverside will allow visitors, in addition to having an accessible tour of almost the entire monument, to enter through the same level of the ramps designed by the Almohads eight centuries ago to save the unevenness of the building. Whose originals can be seen in the archaeological site, as well as vestiges from the 2nd century AD.
Access will be from ground level. Which is the same one that the Almohads placed. About 3.5 meters above the Umayyad and between 4.5 and 5 meters higher than the Roman. All of them present in the Patio de las Mujeres. Where the successive extensions of the wall towards what was the Roman port of the city, outside the walls of the fortified enclosure, are also contemplated.
The archaeologist states that the space currently occupied by the Alcázar was one of the enclosures of the fortresses, which “functioned in coordination”. And that in 1482 Isabel la Católica ceded it to the Inquisition. Dedicated in part to prison and later became the property of the Córdoba City Council. That made it a visitable monument.
Retrieve the logic of the visit
Now what Murillo calls “the logic of the visit” will be recovered. Since the current “museographic discourse is conceived, to a large extent, with its back turned to the history of the building itself.” As revealed by the researcher, academic and tenured professor of the Archeology Area of the University of Córdoba Alberto León Muñoz. In an article in the yearbook of Arabist studies, of the Royal Academy of Córdoba (number 18 2020).
Professor León, who for Juan Murillo is one of the architects of the archaeological works of the Alcázar, explains that in the Patio de las Mujeres there is a sequence of occupation between the 1st and 20th centuries. Where “the finding of evidence of the late-antique civil enclosure (castellum) stands out. That closed the southwestern corner of the city, probable origin of the later Andalusian fortress”.
In his opinion, the Almohad construction phase is “especially interesting”. Because it supposes “a drastic transformation of the structure and operation of the previous Umayyad fortress”. With the construction of a new Almohad palace organized around a large transept patio in its western half and with service rooms in its eastern sector.
This discovery ratified the theories of the work teams that “this square-plan construction constitutes the germ of the later Castilian late-medieval castle, the one currently known as Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos”, and that the Almohad palace stands as the center of a an architectural complex made up of several walled enclosures that triples the size of the old Umayyad fortress to 10.75 hectares, according to Juan Murillo’s calculations.
The easiest access
For the archaeologist from the Urban Planning Department, the Almohads reproduce a model of accumulation of fortified enclosures arranged in a concentric way. Characteristic in Al Andalus, and whose example is “closest and most complete” to the Alcazar of Seville.
In Córdoba, the external enclosures would have an essentially military functionality and the internal ones would combine the defensive character with the administrative and classroom one.
The reason for the reversal of circulation in the building in the last seventy years, since the City Council valued it as a tourist asset, Juan Murillo finds in the fact that the architect who executed the project, Víctor Escribano, came across the area now recognized as the natural entrance to the monument “in ruin” and opted for “the easiest” to allow access to the Salón de los Mosaicos and the gardens, the two references of the Alcázar de Córdoba for decades. EFE
The Córdoba entrance recovers the entrance to its Alcázar through the 12th century Almohad access was first published in EFE Noticias.