[0:03]Nestling in the Andalucian mountains of Southern Spain sits a magnificent fortress, the Alhambra.
[0:13]Its brooding Citadel dominates the Granada skyline. Its great walls have 37 gigantic towers, and it took over 150 years to build. But the Alhambra is more than just a military stronghold. It's a pleasure palace of exquisite courtyards. A blood soaked theater of deadly intrigue. And the most famous surviving monument to Muslim engineering in the Western world.
[1:03]Granada, Southern Spain. In the 13th century, this ancient city lived under Muslim rule. It stood at the point where the Great Granada plain rose to join the mountains of the Sierra Nevada. Guarding over that junction, is the magnificent fortress known as the Alhambra. It was intended from the outside to make a military statement to show that the rulers were powerful. But it's not just a fortress. It's a spectacular network of palaces, each one different. Built by a succession of Sultans across 150 years. Each new ruler has to build a new palace because if you're a ruler, you have to build. These palaces are surrounded by an exquisite suite of gardens, cooled by pools and fountains fed by fresh mountain water. All watched over by a brooding fortress designed to intimidate. Yet for all its beautiful bravado, the Alhambra is not a triumphalist monument. It was born of fear.
[2:13]1238 AD. The Muslim world had been under attack from Christian Crusaders for over a century. The 500-year-old Muslim Empire in Spain was shrinking under pressure from the rising Christian kingdoms in the North. The general trend was for Christian powers to push Southwards and the early 13th century is most definitely a period of dire crisis for Muslim power. Dr. Amira Bennison describes this turning point in the history of Muslim Spain. They face pressure from Castile and then Aragon in the eastern part of what became Spain. The Empire collapsed and it was in the period of collapse that we see local lords like Muhammad I of the Nasrid Dynasty beginning to carve out a niche for themselves. Not much is known about Muhammad ibn Nazir before he enters Granada. He was just one of the many minor Sultans warring over the scraps of the fading Muslim empire. When Castile advanced on his northern territories, he headed South and took over Granada under circumstances that are shrouded in mystery. He's an opportunist if you like, an enterprising individual who's making best use of the political circumstances of the time to try and secure the allegiance of various cities. Including Granada. Once there, Muhammad climbed the wooded slopes above Granada in search of a location to build a fortress in which he could safeguard his family, the Nazrids, from the Christian advance. He heard of a fort built 100 years earlier by a previous dynasty and climbed the hill to investigate.
[4:03]Before him, the ancient Arab castle sat on the Sabika Hill framed by the mountains of the Sierra Nevada. It was the perfect sight for a fortress. In his mind's eye, he could see it grow before him. Muhammad had found his ideal location.
[4:28]The Sabika Hill is a good place for a fortress because it's a hill nearly 100 meters high. Don Antonio Orihuela is an expert in the architecture of the Alhambra. He believes the geography of the area is perfect for a stronghold. And in the back are the last hills of the Sierra Nevada so no army could enter the hill from behind.
[4:56]Muhammad instantly recognized the site's defensive possibilities. He started to outline the Citadel of his dreams. The first step was to rebuild the existing fortress, known as the Alcazaba, into a stronghold large enough to support his troops. This would guard a suite of palaces surrounded by luxurious gardens that would form a Royal Quarter on the northern side of the hill. And beside it, a township called a Medina housing the hundreds of people needed to run this Royal Bastion.
[5:32]Encirciling it would be a gigantic perimeter wall dotted with guard towers to fight off marauding attackers. But first, he needed to build a watchtower.
[5:51]Defensive towers would form an integral part of Muhammad's concept for the Alhambra. The basic building block of each tower was a square chamber repeated at every level. These chambers would be filled with vaulted arches that let light flood through the interior spaces.
[6:14]The first tower Muhammad would build was the Torre de la Vela, known as the Watchtower by the locals. This brooding giant was bigger than anything Granada had seen before. It sent a message to both Muslim and Christian alike. It was a statement to the people of Granada. Nasrid rulers are trying to say we can defend you, but remember that we are your rulers and that we are powerful and that we dominate you as our subjects. So this watchtower needed to be strong enough to hold off any attackers while builders constructed the rest of the Alhambra. For this to work, Muhammad wanted it positioned on the extreme western tip of the Sabika Hill, where it would act as the anchor for his planned new fortress. Here, it would be surrounded by steep slopes on three sides, protecting it from attack as it dominated the Granada Plain.
[7:16]Constructing a huge tower on a precipice, using nothing but primitive tools would not be easy for the builders. But the solution to their problem lay right beneath their feet. They were building their fortress on an almost sheer drop, great for defense, and a gigantic gash in that steep slope reveals the amazing substance that made the Alhambra possible. Beneath the Torre de la Vela, Civil Engineer Ed McCann investigates a seam of this red rock. One of the secrets to the construction of this place over here is this material here. This is the famous Alhambra conglomerate, a mixture of clay and sand and stone. So if you get a handful of it, get it nice and wet, what happens is that the clay starts getting sticky. And so this material becomes moldable. And they use this stuff to make that. It gave the builders a ready-made source of materials on site. This sped up the construction timetable and kept them close to the fortress they were building. Its color also gave the stronghold its name, the Madinat Al-Hamra, which means red city. This amazing early cement allowed the builders to lay a strong concrete base for the great watchtower, without having to quarry and transport huge amounts of stone. But there was a serious flaw in the building's design.
[8:52]The core of the tower was supported by tiers of arches, the full weight of the building resting upon them. Halfway through construction, the builders realized that the arches were not strong enough to take the load. Muhammad's first tower could collapse in on itself at any minute. As an extra means of support, they filled in part of the basement to provide a solid foundation for the tower to rest on. But their hasty repairs failed to fix the problem. Muhammad's fortress was in danger of falling down.
[9:48]And this area was meant to be an awful lot more open than it actually is. What we've got here are a series of arches that have been completely bricked up. This one here for example, should have been as open as this one over here. And you don't do this for nothing, you do this when the structure isn't working properly and when we look around we can see lots of evidence around here of structure that is in distress.
[10:17]Yeah, there we see it. What we've got over here is a very substantial structural crack running right from up the top there all the way down the wall, right the way to the floor. And it's a crack literally that you can put your hand inside. And what this shows us is that this wall here, this one here, has been pushed bodily away from this one here allowing this crack to form. The question is what pushed this wall over? The weight of the tower was crushing the arches that were holding it up, pushing it out of shape and cracking its walls. So what they've done when they've seen the cracks appearing is they've bricked up the area under the arch and turned it into a wall so that all of the forces come down in a straight line. Muhammad's builders bricked up the arches to provide the crucial support needed, but the interior of the tower no longer bore any resemblance to its original design. The Sultan's vision of arched spaces with a varied interplay of light and shadow has vanished entirely. In its place is a brutal monument to the needs of the age. Those needs were defensive.
[11:36]Muhammad's great watchtower looks out over the plains of the Sierra Nevada, with the distant hills of the Kingdom on the horizon. Covered by a modern city today, the watchtower once looked out over open farmland. Here, it's ideally sighted to form the heart of a great intelligence network that guards Muhammad's Kingdom, and the Sultan has need of such a network. By 1245, just 7 years after he took over Granada, Muhammad has already lost his northern territories to the Christian advance, and his army is too small to win them back. This is not a man who is surviving on the basis of military might, because those days are long gone. He's surviving on information and on his relationships. As Professor Dede Fairchild Ruggles knows, the Alhambra's continued existence is dependent on good intelligence. So he needs information. He needs to know when enemies are approaching, and he needs to know what's going on. To gather this information, he installs a network of signal towers designed to warn him of the Christian advance. This network of fortlets was known as Talius. They were part of a vast information gathering system that garnered intelligence from people who passed through the area, providing early warning of Christian troop movements. Signals warning of impending attack would be transmitted from the top of the tower by means of special mirrored plates, smoke or fire.
[13:17]From there, they race from tower to tower, traveling into the Kingdom towards the Alhambra. Until ultimately, they arrive on the roof of the Alhambra's Watchtower, where they warn the Sultan of impending attack. In 1246, messages from his signal towers tell Muhammad that the Christian King Fernando of Castile has taken Hyane, 66 kilometers North of Granada. It's a major blow. Muhammad realizes that he cannot stop the Castilian advance. He needs more time to complete his fortress.
[13:59]He strikes a deal with Fernando in return for guarantees of his own autonomy. Muhammad not only gives up Hyane, he helps Fernando seize Seville. It's a clever move, but it's also an admission of weakness. A lot of people were shocked that he had in effect abandoned Hyane. The reason he did that was to protect the city of Granada. He felt that this was a cost that had to be paid to protect the enclave he'd created. Muhammad knows the uneasy truce might break down at any moment. He wants to ensure that his Citadel is secure as quickly as possible. To do that, he must finish the Alcazaba fortress, which will house the troops guarding the Alhambra. The plan is to build a triangular castle anchored upon three towers. From here, a gatehouse in the back wall provides access to the rest of the Alhambra. Working with the naturally occurring Alhambra conglomerate, the builders use molds to erect its 3-meter thick walls. The key thing about the conglomerate is the ease with which you can build, and this wall here shows exactly how they did it. Basically, what you do is you build yourself a mold. You have two big panels joined together by a series of timber poles. And you can see where the poles would have gone here. Put the poles through there. They put your timber panels in. Tie them together and then you throw in your conglomerate, a bit of water and you ram away, pounding it down, forcing the particles of the conglomerate together in a really tight, concrete-like mix. They leave the layer to dry, then climb up onto it and repeat the process. But the engineers know that there's a significant downside to this method of construction. With water and wind this stuff gets blown away. And what you're looking at here is an eroded surface that over many years has lost its strength. And to prevent that happening, what they did was they applied a lime and sand stucco, which is what this finish is here. So it's just basically sand mixed up with lime and a bit of water and applied like a plaster. And that's much, much better against water, and then the job would be done. In this way, the walls and buildings that made up the Alcazaba could be erected swiftly and efficiently under the defensive shadow of the Torre de la Vela. Looking down from this watchtower, the ground plan of the buildings that once filled the Alcazaba is still visible. This thriving miniature township houses the troops that guard the Sultan and the people who look after them. The central street in the heart of the Alcazaba has five warehouses and 13 private houses. A Tannery, kilns, storehouses and a bakery supply the population's needs. The Alcazaba is teeming with life.
[17:00]And rising above them all are the great defensive towers that overlooked the fortress.
[17:11]Sultan Muhammad must have wondered through his stronghold and felt that his dynasty could finally be secure. But there was more to the Alhambra than just a fortress. Because beyond the Alcazaba, he plans a suite of palaces that will eventually house the Sultan and his family, along with gardens and a minitownship to support them. The Alhambra had a population of not only the Sultan and his family, but of course his followers and servants and guards. It was a very large population that lived in that palace. So one can think of it as a miniature city, probably with as many as 5,000 people living there. In order to sustain this population, the Alhambra is threaded with gardens. The gardens of the Alhambra are designed to recreate an oasis.
[18:16]In this sense, the sensation of being in a recreational space and at the same time a productive space is fundamental. So the gardens of the Alhambra were designed for practicality as well as pleasure, to grow food as well as flowers.
[18:37]There is just one problem. There is no source of fresh water on the Sabika Hill. It's a huge drawback for a stronghold expected to feed and water as many as 5,000 people. The nearest water source is the river that flows just to the North of the site, but this has a severe drawback. Of course, if you'd been here in the 13th century, the River Darro would have looked pretty much like it does today. A small babbling brook making its way through Granada. The basic problem Muhammad has is that the water's down here and he needs it up there. To make the Alhambra viable, its builders must divert an entire river up onto the mountain of Muhammad.
[21:55]Water from this reservoir flows into a brick-lined canal, known as an Afiya by the Muslims. This ultimately feeds the Alhambra. But diverting the River Darro is just the start of this mammoth project. The canal builders still have to overcome a major obstacle. The reservoir sits in a valley between three hills.
[22:25]So in order to reach the Alhambra, Muhammad's engineers need to build a water channel 6 km long that winds through the hills above the fortress. This has to carry the equivalent of 7,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools every day to support the Alhambra's growing population. And will only work if it flows downhill at a constant gradient. So how can this happen when there's a hill in the way? Their solution is a bold one. Instead of going over the high ground, they decide to cut through it.
[23:05]The builders dig a tunnel about 1 meter wide and 2 meters high through the hillside towards the Alhambra. And the natural stability of the Alhambra conglomerate ensures that there's no danger of collapse. It must have taken them months to borrow a channel into the hill next to the Alhambra, known as the Henelaffe. But there is still one great problem that must be solved. The Alhambra sits on a completely different hill. Muhammad's engineers must find a way to get the water from one hill to another. To get water from the hill of the Henelaffe next to the Alhambra into the Alhambra itself, Muhammad's engineers need to cross a 15-meter gap that separates the two hills. The solution, an aqueduct. And this is where the water from the Darro River arrives at the Alhambra. Comes across here and in the old days, it used to go across the Azekiya Real which was the channel which took it all the way into the center of the Alhambra. The Azekiya Real formed the lifeline for the Alhambra's Citadel. From here, water flowed to every part of the Alhambra. It provided fresh water for the populace and it fed the multitude of water features in the gardens of the Sultans. These gardens were designed to symbolize the Kingdom of Granada over which the Sultans ruled. The gardens had a practical function as well. They were designed to create an oasis in the heat of the Granada sun. Islam originated in the desert, in an environment where water was at a premium and the ability to provide water and to have water flowing is naturally something that's extremely desirable. In fact, it's more than desirable. It's of crucial importance. Flowing water is very important from a Muslim perspective, because you need it to perform ritual ablutions. You will notice in the Alhambra that water is rarely completely still. Even when you have still pools, water is flowing into those pools and flowing out again. And this is very important in terms of ritual purity that all water sort of continues flowing. So, to keep the water pure, Muhammad's engineers must create a system that will prevent sediment from silting up the channels. There's an exact geometry to the pattern, which uses triangles and rectangular blocks to create its effects. The variety of cuts in the plaster work creates different geometrical shapes called Ahas. These are set into the wall of the building with clay, ready for painting. The plaster work is very complex. Not only because the constant play between solid and void, but also it was originally painted. It was bright red, bright blue, so it would have been a very vibrant experience. The painters use exotic pigments. Among them, blue lazarite, extracted from lapis lazuli in Afghanistan, which cost as much as gold. It's as if the rules of existence had been completely changed, because overhead is this vault that you cannot comprehend. You actually cannot understand what the spatial dimensions are. There is no fixed point up there that you can focus your eyes. It is an extraordinary sensory experience. This was to prove the high point for the Muslim Kingdom of Granada. Because a century after Muhammad and Pedro's artistic alliance, a different kind of partnership would signal the Alhambra's downfall. In 1469, the Christian Kingdoms of Castile and Aragon unite under Ferdinand and Isabella. Their historic alliance creates the Kingdom of Spain and marks a brutal new phase in Christian policy towards Granada. The war they begin is a relentless Crusade.
[27:37]On New Year's Day, 1492, after 10 long years of war, Granada, last Muslim bastion in Spain, finally capitulates to the Christians. Among those in the Spanish camp who witnessed the surrender is a sea captain seeking Royal sponsorship for a voyage of discovery to the New World. His name is Christopher Columbus.
