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The Court of the Lions or Palace of the Lions is a palace in the heart of the Alhambra, a historic citadel formed by a complex of palaces, gardens and forts in Granada, Spain. It was commissioned by the Nasrid sultan Muhammed V of the Emirate of Granada in Al-Andalus. Its construction started in the second period of his reign, between 1362 and 1391 AD. Along with the Alhambra, the palace is part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was minted in Spain's 2011 limited edition of €2 Commemorative Coins.
The Palace of the Lions is one of the most famous palaces in Islamic architecture and exemplifies the apogee of Nasrid architecture in Al-Andalus. The architecture of the palace presented a significant shift in the design of Nasrid palaces and introduced new trends in ornamentation. The building consists of a rectangular courtyard centered on a marble fountain with twelve sculpted lions. Four main halls surround the courtyard, along with some upper-floor rooms. Water channels connect the central fountain with smaller fountains in the four halls. The halls feature some of the most elaborate and sophisticated muqarnas vaults in the Islamic world.
The name "Palace of the Lions" or "Court of the Lions" is a modern designation given to the palace, based on the notable lion sculptures around the central fountain. Due to limited historical documentation, the palace's original name during the Nasrid period cannot be confirmed for certain. One theory is that it was known as the Qasr ar-Riyad (Arabic: قصر الرياض, lit. 'Palace of the Garden') or, more fully, Qasr ar-Riyad as-Sa'id (Arabic: قصر الرياض السعيد, lit. 'Palace of the Joyous Garden'). Another suggestion is that it was known as Dar 'Aisha (Arabic: بيت عائشة, lit. 'House of 'Aisha'), purportedly named after one of Muhammad V's favourite wives, although there is no historical record of what his wives were called. This name was later corrupted to Daraxa or Daraja in Spanish, and survives in the name of the adjoining Lindaraja courtyard.
The Alhambra was a self-contained palace-city surrounded by fortifications, built up by the Nasrid rulers of the Emirate of Granada in the 13th to 15th centuries. Multiple palaces were added and expanded over the years by different rulers. The Palace of the Lions was added by Muhammad V, who is also responsible for other important contributions to the Alhambra. The period of Muhammad V's reign is considered by scholars to mark the apogee of Nasrid architecture, characterized in particular by a profusive use of muqarnas (stalactite-like sculpting) and three-dimensional muqarnas vaults.
The chronology of construction in the Palace of the Lions is not clearly established, but it took place during Muhammad V's second reign (1362–1391), after his return from a period of exile. The Hall of the Two Sisters (Sala de Dos Hermanas), on the north side of the court, was completed in 1362 or between 1362 and 1365, when Muhammad V was celebrating his return to the throne and was also refurbishing the Mexuar and the Comares Palace. According to scholar Felix Arnold, the rest of the palace was built between 1377 and 1390. Some scholars have suggested that the palace was most likely completed in 1380. Inscriptions throughout the palace feature poems by Ibn Zamrak, a poet and long-serving vizier at the time, which suggests that he was probably involved in its design.
The area the Palace of the Lions was built on was formerly part of a larger garden or riad. Much of the area around it remained an open garden afterward, including the area on its north side which is now occupied by the Patio de Lindaraja (Courtyard of Lindaraja). Possibly because of this, the palace's original name may have been Qasr ar-Riyad (Arabic: قصر الرياض, lit. 'Palace of the Garden'). During the Nasrid era, the palace was completely independent from the nearby Comares Palace to the west and had its own street entrance. On the south side of the palace, separated from it by a narrow street, was the Rawda (Arabic: روضة), the dynastic mausoleum of the Nasrids, of which only the foundations remain today.
A widely-held scholarly view is that the palace was intended to serve as a private residence with a more intimate character than the Comares Palace, which served more official public functions. It may have served as a pleasure palace for entertainment. In his 2004 book on the Alhambra, Robert Irwin argued that while this interpretation is plausible, there is little direct evidence about the palace's function. It has also been suggested that the palace was built to commemorate Muhammad V's victories, in particular his retaking of Algeciras in 1369. Robert Irwin states that there is no direct evidence for this interpretation either and that the chronology of events makes it unlikely. However, the loot gained from those victories may have helped Muhammad V finance his construction projects.
One theory by art historian Juan Carlos Ruiz Souza proposes that the palace may have actually been a madrasa and zawiya instead. According to this interpretation, the so-called Hall of Kings (Sala de los Reyes) and the Hall of Muqarnas (Sala de los Mocárabes) would have served as the palace library, the Hall of Two Sisters (Sala de Dos Hermanas) would have been a multifunctional space, the upstairs Court of the Harem (Patio del Harén) would have been a residential apartment for the person in charge of the madrasa, and the Hall of the Abencerrajes (Sala de los Abencerrajes) would have served as the madrasa's oratory and possibly also as the mausoleum of Muhammad V himself.[20] Another scholar commenting on this theory, Cynthia Robinson, argues that while its function as a formal madrasa and a mausoleum may be hard for scholars to accept, the building could have still functioned as a kind of bayt al-ḥikma ("house of knowledge") – meaning a place dedicated to education, contemplation and other intellectual or cultural activities – aimed at a royal Nasrid audience and related to their patronage of Sufism.
Granada was conquered by the Catholic Monarchs of Spain in 1492 and the Alhambra became a palace owned by the Spanish monarchy. Like much of the Alhambra, the Palace of the Lions suffered damages and underwent various repairs, restorations, and modifications over time. Under the Catholic Monarchs, it was connected to the Comares Palace by a direct passage for the first time, as it remains today.
Starting in 1528, emperor Charles V commissioned the construction of new apartments in the area to the north of the palace. The former gardens on the north side of the palace, which had allowed for an uninterrupted view of the city on this side, were turned into an enclosed garden during this period, resulting in the present Patio de Lindaraja. Additionally, the original entrance to the Palace of the Lions, on its south side, was suppressed in order to make a connection to the new Renaissance-style Palace of Charles V. Modifications were also made to the fountain inside the Court of the Lions during the second half of the 16th century.
In 1590 the western chamber of the palace, the Sala de los Mocarabes, was destroyed by the explosion of a nearby gunpowder magazine. The room's former muqarnas-vault ceiling, now lost, was eventually replaced by a Baroque-style plaster vault in 1714, designed by painter Blas de Ledesma for the visit of Phillip V and Isabella of Parma.
In the 19th century, probably during the French occupation (1810–1812), the floor of the courtyard was replaced with gardens – although there has been much debate among scholars as to whether gardens had previously existed in the courtyard.
In 1859 the architect Rafael Contreras "restored" the courtyard's eastern pavilion by giving it a spherical dome roof with ceramic tiling, based in part on Iranian architecture. This conformed to what European restorers at the time thought the "Arab style" should look like. The domed roof was disassembled in 1934 by Leopoldo Torres Balbás and replaced with its current pyramidal roof, which set off an international debate about the nature of restorations. Torres Balbás argued for a more scientific approach to restoration, in contrast with the more "stylistic" restoration philosophy of his predecessors. Nonetheless, Torres Balbás's roof is still partly incorrect, as its angles are too steep compared with similar pyramidal roofs in Moorish architecture.
In 2002, the Patronato de la Alhambra (the official agency in charge of the historical site) began a major and comprehensive restoration of the Court of the Lions. This involved the temporary removal of the fountain's lion sculptures and modifications to its hydraulic system. The restoration of the fountain and most of the courtyard was completed in 2012. One of the last steps in the restoration was the replacement of the courtyard's previous gravel flooring with a pavement of Macael marble flagstones, a decision based on the study of historical archives and on new archeological investigations showing that the underlying rock bed would have made the topsoil too thin for gardens. A recent study of some of the muqarnas compositions around Court of the Lions was able to identify deformations and imperfections that have occurred due to the many repairs and restorations that took place across generations. The Sala de los Reyes is still undergoing further restoration work. A project to restore its three painted leather ceilings was completed in 2018, while a new project to restore the stucco decoration below these ceilings began in July 2022.
The palace is centered around a rectangular courtyard, which is surrounded on four sides by chambers and an arcaded gallery or portico. Many of the names for individual rooms were coined in Spanish after the end of the Reconquista and have little to do with any original Arabic names.
The rectangular courtyard measures about 28.7 meters long and 15.6 meters wide, with its long axis aligned roughly east-to-west. The arches and columns of the surrounding portico are arranged in a complex pattern that is unique in the architecture of the Islamic world. Single columns alternate with groups of two or three columns to forming a visual rhythm that highlights certain parts of the façade. Each column or group of columns demarcates a bay: there are 17 bays on the north and south sides of the courtyard and 11 bays on the east and west sides. On the north and south sides, the central bay is wider than all the others as it leads to the entrance of the hall behind it. On the east and west sides, a pavilion structure projects into the courtyard from the portico. It has been argued by Georges Marçais that the spacing of columns and arches was set to the golden ratio, but there is no strong evidence that Muslim architects ever used it. Instead, as Antonio Fernández-Puertas postulates, the rectangles used in the construction may have been based on square roots and surds.
The pavilions are also supported by slender columns forming three bays of different sizes on each side of the pavilion, with the middle bay slightly wider than the two side bays. At the corners of the pavilion the columns meet in groups of three. The pavilions have pyramidal roofs covering a wooden dome ceiling inside it. The wooden domes feature geometric patterns similar in style to the wooden ceilings in other parts of the Alhambra like the Hall of the Ambassadors.
The arcades of the porticos and the pavilions feature intricately-carved stucco decoration, known as yesería in Spanish. A sebka motif – a stylized lozenge-like motif – fills the spaces above the arches and between the columns, accompanied by further vegetal arabesques, other abstract motifs, and muqarnas sculpting. There are also Arabic inscriptions, including the repetition of the Nasrid motto "wa la ghaliba illa-llah" (Arabic: ولا غالب إلا الله, lit. 'And there is no conqueror but God').
The courtyard also features a sophisticated system of water channels, fountains, and basins. At the center of the southern hall, the northern hall, and the eastern and western porticoes is a small fountain at ground level with a round basin from which a water channel runs across the marble floor along the central axes of the courtyard. Additional fountains with basins are situated at the center of the pavilions, along these channels, and separately at the corners of the western and eastern porticoes. The four water channels intersect at the center of the courtyard, where the famed Fountain of the Lions stands. This fountain consists of a large elevated basin surrounded by twelve stylized lion sculptures, all carved from marble.
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Riyadh (Arabic: الرياض Ar-Riyāḍ) is the capital of Saudi Arabia and its largest city. It is also the capital of Riyadh Province, and belongs to the historical regions of Nejd and Al-Yamama. It is situated in the center of the Arabian Peninsula on a large plateau, and is home to over 6,360,000 people.
Kingdom Tower (Arabic: برج المملكة) in Riyadh is the tallest skyscraper in Saudi Arabia. With a height of 302 m (992 ft), it is the 37th tallest building in the world. The tower is built on area of 94,230 square meters of land, while the whole center is built on a total area of 300,000 square meters. The tower is host to the highest mosque in the world. The Kingdom Center is owned by prince of the Saudi royal family. It is also the headquarters of his holding company: Kingdom Holding Company. The total cost of the project was 1.717 billion Saudi Arabian Riyals and the contract was taken by Saudi Arabian El Saif and the Italian Impregilo S.p.A. Kingdom Center is situated in Al-Urubah Road between King Fahd Road and Olaya Street in the growing business district of Al-Olaya in Riyadh. Kingdom Center was the winner of the 2002 Emporis Skyscraper Award, selected as the "best new skyscraper of the year for design and functionality". A three-level shopping center, which also won a major design award, fills the east wing. The large opening is illuminated at night in continuously changing colors. Known as the “necklace” for its unusual apex, its most distinctive feature is steel and glass, 300 tone bridge connecting the two towers. High speed elevators fly you (at 180km/h) to the 99th floor sky bridge from where the views are breathtaking.
PENTAX K20D, f/13, 30 sec (30), ISO 100, 35 mm
All rights reserved - Copyright © Lucie Debelkova www.luciedebelkova.com
All images are exclusive property and may not be copied, downloaded, reproduced, transmitted, manipulated or used in any way without expressed, written permission of the photographer.
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Riyadh (Arabic: الرياض ar-Riyāḍ) is the capital of Saudi Arabia and its largest city. It is also the capital of Riyadh Province, and belongs to the historical regions of Nejd and Al-Yamama. It is situated in the center of the Arabian Peninsula on a large plateau, and is home to over 4,260,000 people. The highest building in the middle is a Kingdom Centre Tower (Arabic: برج المملكة), it is a supertall skyscraper in Riyadh. It is the tallest skyscraper in Saudi Arabia and the 40th tallest building in world with a height of 311 m (1,000 ft). It is also host to the highest mosque in the world. The Tower Contains a total of 41 floors. It is also the 2nd tallest building with a hole. The Kingdom Centre is owned by Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, a prince of the Saudi royal family. It is also the headquarters of his holding company: Kingdom Holding Company. The total cost of the project was US$1 billion. Kingdom Centre is situated in Al-Urubah Road between King Fahd Road and Olaya Road.
If you wonder how I get photo like this, the story goes as follows - during my February trip to Saudi, I've discovered unfinished high building between Kingdom tower and Faisaliah tower. The weather that month was terrible due to sand storm across the whole region. I have however made appointment that I come again this weekend. So I did. The construction manager that I have agreed with was not there anymore but they knew I'm coming. It was just after 4PM but the sunset was at 6PM that day. Shift for construction workers finished at 4.45 PM which would mean I have to walk to the 19th floor on foot if I'd come just before 6PM as they only use one work lift that is from outside of the building (rather scary, not recommended to look down). I didn't fancy the walk up and agreed with the present manager that I stay there for those 2 hours till sunset and then walk those 19 floors down. They already thought that I'm crazy, but as there are not that many crazy European women around, they let me. Luck however was on my side and that handsome manager came back just before sunset, probably thinking that I shoot 3 photos of sun setting down and I'm done. How little did he know ... The best colors always come after sunset and long exposures can be done only when the darkness falls. He had to wait for another hour to get me down :-) We had really lovely time while seeing sky like this, listening the the calls for prayers, coming from every corner of the city.. allahu akbar, allahu akbar... with the whole city in front of us. We talked about life and photography, he made a mistake asking me, how is the photo done, so I bore him for a while trying to explain long exposure time .. not for long.. Moments like this are priceless and I was extremely thankful to him that he rescued me from walking all those 19th floors down on rather unfinished staircase. I have to admit that I could not believe my eyes when I saw that enormous cloud just coming from behind the symbol of Riyadh and needless to say that colors likes this are very, very rare in the Middle East. The Gods of weather had to be on my side yet again.
Canon EOS 5D Mark II, f/4.0, 0.05 sec (1/20), ISO 200, 21 mm
All rights reserved - Copyright © Lucie Debelkova www.luciedebelkova.com
All images are exclusive property and may not be copied, downloaded, reproduced, transmitted, manipulated or used in any way without expressed, written permission of the photographer.
I used to worry about having a good camera at a football match. It had to get through security and be good enough to take a picture of the action. This is Riyad Mahrez scoring the third goal from a penalty in the FA Cup match Man City vs Fulham. The iPhone does the job nicely.
مدينة الرياض - برج التلفزيون - وزارة الثقافة والإعلام
Riyadh City - Television Tower - The Ministry of Culture and Information
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HZ-AR12 - Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner.
Saudia.
Amsterdam Schiphol Airport (EHAM/AMS).
03OCT2021.
Obs: SV216 departing for Riyad (OERK/RUH).
This image portrays an authentic moment of movement in the heart of Cairo, where people navigate the streets of Abdel Moneim Riyad Square. The layered composition highlights the contrast between human activity and monumental structures, with Cairo Tower rising in the distance alongside the imposing Tahrir Complex. A visual narrative of motion, structure, and atmosphere in one of the city's busiest hubs.
MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - MAY 21: Riyad Mahrez of Manchester City takes to the field with children prior to the Premier League match between Manchester City and Chelsea FC at Etihad Stadium on May 21, 2023 in Manchester, England. (Photo by Lexy Ilsley - Manchester City/Manchester City FC via Getty Images)