Wall decorations in the Alhambra

There is much to see and admire in the Alhambra’s Palaces: exquisite rooms, decorated with stone and wood carvings, finest ornaments, and calligraphy; night sky represented in ceilings built of thousands of pieces of wood; courtyards and fountains; monuments, towers, archways, (...) - the list is endless. Quite possibly, an immense wealth of ornamental patterns, friezes, mosaics, star designs, and brickwork motifs top the list. Among those, mosaics are perhaps the most interesting and the mosts intriguing. Scientists and artist working in the Islamic world pushed geometry to its limits, creating patterns and configurations whose sophistication has never been surpassed. Investigating numerous possibilities, based on experience and long tradition, builders of mosaics in the Alhambra created them all - in the sens of the mathematics theorem of classification of plane crystallographic groups (or wallpaper patterns). Mosaics and other stucco wall decorations presents in the Alhambra are an invitation for a ‘dynamic’ experience, different from enjoying a picture of a landscape. Our eye is not able to focus on one location; there is no centre, no boundary and no preferred direction. You can see it in these wall decorations examples:

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New lobby to the Alhambra. Granada

“New Door” project by  architects Álvaro Siza and Juan Domingo Santos, was the first prize in the Atrio de la Alhambra International Ideas Competition, promoted by the institutional Patronato de la Alhambra and the Generalife in the year 2010th.

“La Puerta Nueva de la Alhambra deberá encuadrarse en un delicado equilibrio entre Naturaleza y Arquitectura que el Tiempo no ha comprometido aún” (The New Door of the Alhambra should be framed in a delicate balance between Nature and Architecture that the Time has not committed yet) the architects said in the projectual memory of their proposal project.

New Door has been proclaimed winner by the jury, chaired by the Council for Culture general secretary for cultural policy, Bartolomé Ruiz, praised “its scenic integration with its immediate environment, and its perfect compliance with the aims of the Alhambra Management Plan”. According to the jury, the project, submitted by Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza Vieira and his Granadian colleague Juan Domingo Santos, has “excellent specifications and responds perfectly to the needs of the program, guaranteeing its technical and functional viability”.

Otherwise, this decision, passed by the 15-member jury, 13 of whom are prominent architects, among others, brings an end to the second and final phase of the competition, which praised “the high architectural quality of all the proposals submitted, their originality and their innovation.” The jury’s decision was unanimous and, after lengthy deliberation, they also acknowledged the project At the feet of the Alhambra, submitted by Guillermo Vázquez Consuegra, as “complying perfectly with the needs of the program” and “proposing an excellent organisation of visitor routes”. Likewise, February, submitted by architects Cruz y Ortiz, was praised for its “typological clarity” and “its sequencing of spaces in relation to the Alhambra”. Along with these three, other two projects were admitted to Phase II of the competition.

After the term for the submission of preliminary projects ended on February 15th 2011, each team was required to submit explanatory panels, using planimetrics and virtual three dimensional representation, along with scale models, which  remained during a time on display in the Chapel of the Palace of Carlos V exihibitions rooms.

The aim of the Atrio de la Alhambra competition was to improve the visitor experience and to remedy certain deficiencies with regard to tourist reception and information and the distribution of the ticket offices, among other aspects. The improvements proposed by the Patronato de la Alhambra y Generalife (PAG) include a small assembly room where 3D documentaries can be screened, and a tourist office offering information not just about the Alhambra site, but also about Granada and Andalusia as a whole.

One of the aims of the proposals was to recover the visuals of the site, redefining its southern aspect and the views over the wickerwork workshops and the Cypress Avenue.  Another aspect to which PAG paid special attention was the need to visually integrate the current two parking areas. The International Ideas Competition forms part of the framework of events set out in the Alhambra Management Plan, the guidelines that will mark the future of the site until 2015.

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The Guggenheim, a new museum in Abu Dhabi

The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi will be a preeminent platform for global contemporary art and culture that will present the most important artistic achievements of our time. Through its permanent collection, exhibitions, scholarly publications and educational programs, the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi will promote a truly transnational perspective on art history, and is being developed in collaboration with The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation which, since its founding in 1937, has promoted the understanding and appreciation of art, architecture, and other manifestations of visual culture, primarily of the modern and contemporary periods.

The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi will move beyond a definition of global art premised on geography by focusing on the interconnected dynamics of local, regional, and international art centers as well as their diverse historical contexts and sources of creative inspiration. In realizing this endeavor, the museum will acknowledge and celebrate the specific identity derived from the cultural traditions of Abu Dhabi and the United Arab Emirates, as well as other countries comprising the Middle East, even as it pioneers a novel, visionary model that will redefine the art-historical canon.

The landmark structure housing the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi was designed by world-renowned architect Frank Gehry (at the same time author of the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum, among other famous buildings), who describes his composition for the building as “intentionally ‘messy,’ moving into clarity.” The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi will have spectacular views of the Saadiyat Cultural District and Arabian Gulf.

Open to the elements, the Guggenheim’s cones recall the region’s ancient wind-towers, which both ventilate and shade the museum’s exterior courtyards in a fitting blend of Arabian tradition and modern design.

Visitors will enter the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi through one of the cones, covered on the exterior with panes of blue glass and defined on the interior by a dynamic structure of wooden timbers.

Just off the soaring glass atrium are workshops and a 350-seat theater, where the museum will offer a wide-ranging educational and performing-arts program. The state-of-the-art facility will allow for a wide variety of live events including lectures, panels, symposiums, music recitals, dance and theater productions, film viewings, and performances. Galleries, many unprecedented in scale, are distributed around the atrium on four levels connected by glass bridges above. The museum features approximately 12,500 square meters of gallery space in the monumental piles of gallery boxes, and 11 iconic cones provide a further 18,000 square meters of exhibition space.

Nine of the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi’s ten blue cones will also be accessible from the atrium and galleries. In each of these cones, the visitor will have the opportunity to view unique, site-specific artworks by leading contemporary artists. Clad in translucent honey-colored stone, the eleventh cone rests high above the atrium, weaving together the interior and exterior of the building.

About the curatorial concept, The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi will build a permanent collection, organize exhibitions, generate scholarship and undertake educational programs that will examine the history of art produced around the world since the 1960s from a variety of perspectives. The permanent collection display and temporary exhibitions will both recognize unique contributions to art history and underscore the interconnected dynamics and fundamentally transnational nature of contemporary art practice. Major art-historical movements will be surveyed through the lens of a transnational understanding of world cultures. A dynamic program of changing exhibitions will explore common themes, formal affinities, and other key relationships among the work of artists across time and geography.

Artists will be invited to produce site-specific commissions for the collection and exceptional spaces of the museum building. In addition, the museum will be a catalyst for scholarship in a variety of fields, chief among them the history of art in the Middle East in the 20th and 21st centuries.

 

The Moroccan Zellige

Zellige, zillij or zellij is terra cotta tilework covered with enamel in the form of chips set into plaster. It is one of the main characteristics of the Moroccan architecture. It consists of geometrical mosaics made of ceramic used mainly as an ornament for walls, ceilings, fountains, floors, pools, tables, interior courtyards and garden pathways, etc.

The art of zellige flourished at the Hispano-Andalusian period of Morocco. The art remained very limited in use until the Merinid dynasty who gave it more importance around the 14th century and introduced blue, green and yellow colours. Red was added in the 17th century. The old enamels with the natural colours were used until the beginning of the 20th century and the colours had probably not evolved much since the period of Merinids. The cities of Fes, Meknes and Marrakesh remain the centers of this art.

Patrons of the art used zellige historically to decorate their homes as a statement of luxury and the sophistication of the inhabitants. Zellige is typically a series of patterns utilizing colorful geometric shapes. This framework of expression arouse from the need of Islamic artists to create spatial decorations that avoided depictions of living things, consistent with the teachings of Islamic law.

The colour palette of the zellige started to grow rich by colors which make it possible to multiply the compositions ad infinitum. The most current form of the zellige is the square one whose dimensions are variable. Other forms are also possible in composition: the octagonal combined with a cabochon, a star, a cross, etc. It is then moulded with a thickness of approximately 2 centimetres. There exists in simple squares of 10 per 10 centimeters or with the corners cut to be combined with a coloured cabochon. To pave the grounds, bejmat, a paving stone of 15 per 5 centimetres approximately and 2 centimetres thick, can also be used.

Zellige making is considered an art in itself. The art is transmitted from generation to generation by maâlems (master craftsmen). A long training starts at childhood in order to master exceptional skills.

Assiduous attention to detail is very important in the process of creating zellige works. The small shaped (cut according to a precise radius gauge), painted and enamel covered pieces are then assembled together in a geometrical structure as in puzzle to form the completed single mosaic. The process has not varied for a millennium.

To know more about the process, click on the next video link:  

From clay to mosaics