The Emperor’s Chambers. January Space

Office of the Emperor

Emperor's Bedroom

Timetable: From 8:30 to 18:00. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday.
Access: Show general entrance ticket to the Monumental Ensemble of the Alhambra.
Forum: Maximum 30 people at one time.

The construction of the Emperor’s chambers is understood as the result of  the adaptation of the Islamic palaces to their new Christian use. These apartments were built on the area of the meadow, located beside the “Two Sisters Room”. The project consisted in a number of rooms that were meant to join the “Court of the Lions” and the “Comares” Palaces.  Even though this construction dates back to the period of Charles V, some researches reveal a number of interventions during the period of the Catholic Monarchs.

Although there were a number of visually identified changes, we need to consider that these new additions made to the palaces were well integrated among the rest of the Nasrid chambers. They were adapted to the context without the need of creating the symmetry in the spatial lay out. These new rooms are communicated through an internal corridor and are organized around an irregular patio. This arrangement differs from the typical Islamic structure of a Palace, where we find independent chambers organized around patios, without that internal corridor.

The first room, Known as the Emperor’s Study, preserves a fire place and a wooden ceiling, both designed by Pedro Machuca. Following, we see an antechamber through which we reach the royal bedrooms. Above the entry door to the study there is a commemorative marble plaque placed in 1914 in memory of the famous North American writer Washington Irving, who lived in the so-called Fruits hall of this chambers. Between 1535 and 1537, Julio Aquiles and Alejandro Mayner, closely related to Raphael, painted the frescos of these chambers.

Name: The Emperor’s Chambers or Washington Irving’s Chambers, in memory of the North American writer, author of the famous “Tales of the Alhambra”. Washington Irving used these chambers during his stay in Granada in 1829, living in the rooms known as “The Fruits hall”.

Period: From 1528 and on.

Outstanding features: The wooden ceiling was designed by Pedro Machuca together with the two fire places, one of them located in the Emperor’s Study and the other one in the Emperor’s Bedroom.

Source: Patronato de la Alhambra