Palace of Charles V

The Catholic Monarchs had already enabled rooms after 1492, but the intention by Charles was to acquire a stable residence to the extent of an emperor. The project was assigned to Pedro Machuca. In Spain the prevailing style was Plateresque. Machuca built a palace which corresponded stylistically to mannerism, a style that was still in its infancy in Italy. Even accepting the versions that Machuca put in the workshops of Michelangelo, they began work on the Palace in 1527 he had not yet taken it as representative of its production and characteristics.

Description

The floor of the palace is shaped by a square 63 meters with a circular courtyard inscribed inside. This provision, the main feature of the palace, is unprecedented in Renaissance architecture, and places the building in what is considered the avant garde of the moment. The building has two levels: on the lower level the Tuscan is padded and the pillars are inserted in a large decorated bronze ring. The upper is Ionic pilasters and lintels which spans alternatively with pediment bearing. The two main facades boast stone path covers of Sierra Elvira.

The court also is circular and two storeys. The bottom is chaired by a conglomerate stone Doric colonnade with an entablature unorthodox, consisting of triglyphs and metopes with garlands and bucranium reasons. The upper floor is formed by a Ionic colonnade, lighter, with flat entablature. This general structure of the courtyard shows a clear understanding of imperial Roman architecture, and falls in the purest Renaissance but for their willingness curve, which results in confusion when the viewer enters its main facades and interior spaces. Later, Michelangelo and Palladio constructed buildings with analog, under the label of Mannerism.

Historical context and influence
View of the courtyard

The building was implanted in the heart of the Muslim Alhambra at one end of the Patio of the Lions and its development was necessary to tear down a flag opposite the tower of Comares. This fact, which has been subject to criticism and controversy, must be understood in the context of his time: The Palace of Charles I did not mean both the destruction of part of the Alhambra as much as the guarantee of the survival of the rest. At a time when the total destruction of palaces and temples of the subject peoples were more common, the sensitivity of the Christian kings to the undeniable beauty of the Alhambra meant the need to enjoy it from within and thus to keep it.

Vacuum Palace Museum of Fine Arts

Since 1958, the palace has housed the Museo de Bellas Artes de Granada, with rare pieces like the famous still life of Juan Sanchez Cotan and some examples by Alonso Cano. After a complete renovation in January 2008 the museum reopened.

The Palace of Charles V in Granada is a Renaissance building on the hill of the Alhambra. Since 1958, it has housed the Museo de Bellas Artes de Granada. It was built by King Charles I (Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire under the name of Charles V) during his marriage to Isabella of Portugal held in Seviila in 1526. After the wedding, the couple had been living for several months in the Alhambra and were deeply impressed by the palace, leaving it in charge of the construction of the new palace with the intention of establishing residence in the Alhambra Granadina.