Palace of Charles V

Stand in the centre of the courtyard and listen for a moment. Your footsteps echo back to you, bent and softened by the curved stone around you. Above, the sky is cut into a perfect circle. The columns march around you in two rings, one above the other. Here, inside the Alhambra, this is a strange feeling. You have just walked past Islamic arches and tiled walls, and suddenly you are standing inside a piece of Renaissance Italy.

This is the Palace of Charles V. Charles was the most powerful ruler in Europe in his day. He was King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, which meant he governed lands from the Netherlands to the Americas. In 1526, he came to Granada with his new wife, Isabella of Portugal, for their honeymoon. They stayed in the Alhambra. The young emperor loved the place, and he decided he wanted a home here of his own.

That decision matters for everything you see. The Alhambra had been the palace city of the Nasrid dynasty. The Nasrids were the last Muslim rulers of Granada. In 1492, Granada fell to the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, who were Charles's grandparents. A generation later, Charles chose to build a new palace right beside the Nasrid halls. Some walls and rooms of the older complex were cleared to make space for it.

The architect was Pedro Machuca. He was a Spanish painter and architect who had trained in Italy. There, he absorbed the new ideas of the High Renaissance — the movement that looked back to ancient Rome for its rules of proportion and order. Work on the palace began in 1527. Machuca designed something bold. The building is a square on the outside, but a perfect circle on the inside. Very few buildings of that period tried this plan.

Look around the courtyard now. The lower ring of columns follows the Doric style. Doric is the plainest of the classical orders, with simple, cushion-like tops on the columns. The upper ring uses the Ionic order, which you can recognise by the scroll shapes at the top of each column. This stacking, plain below and more decorative above, comes straight from ancient Roman buildings such as the Colosseum. Machuca was speaking the language of empire.

Here is something many visitors miss. For most of its history, this palace had no roof. Charles never lived here. Construction moved slowly through the sixteenth century, and funding was a constant problem. Much of the money came from taxes paid by the Moriscos. The Moriscos were Muslims who had been forced to convert to Christianity. When they rose in revolt in 1568, that money stopped. Work slowed again, and the building stood unfinished for centuries.

Think about that for a moment. For hundreds of years, this was a grand stone shell. Travellers in the nineteenth century described it as a ruin, even though it had never been completed. Weeds grew between the stones. The courtyard stood open to rain and sun. Only in the twentieth century did restorers finally add a roof and complete the interiors. So the building you see is, in a sense, both very old and quite recent.

Now walk outside and look at the main façade. The lower storey is rusticated. That means the stone blocks are left rough and heavy, with deep grooves between them. It gives the base a strong, fortress-like feel. The upper storey is smoother and more refined. Between the windows and doors you will find carved reliefs. Some show battle scenes, and others show allegories of victory and peace. These images celebrated Charles as a soldier and a ruler.

Look lower on the façade for a second surprise. Set into the stone are large bronze rings. Each ring hangs from a carved animal head. Some heads are lions, and some are eagles. The eagle was a symbol of the emperor. The rings had a practical purpose too. They were designed for tying up horses. Imagine riders arriving in the square outside, dismounting, and looping their reins through a bronze ring held in an eagle's beak.

Many people feel that this palace does not belong here. Some visitors find it cold and heavy beside the delicate Nasrid rooms. Others admire it as one of the purest Renaissance buildings in Spain. Both reactions are fair. The contrast is the point. In just a few steps, you move from one civilisation to another. The palace is a statement in stone. It tells the visitor that a new power now ruled Granada.

Today the building has a second life as a home for art. On the ground floor is the Museum of the Alhambra. It holds objects from the Islamic period of Granada — carved wood, ceramics, tiles, and decorative plaster from the Nasrid palaces. Upstairs is the Museum of Fine Arts of Granada, with paintings and sculpture from later centuries. So the Renaissance shell now protects the treasures of the culture it replaced. That is a quiet irony worth noticing.

The courtyard also has a modern role. Its round shape and stone walls carry sound well. For many years, it has hosted concerts during Granada's international festival of music and dance, held in the summer. On those nights, an orchestra sits where horses and builders once moved. If you clap your hands gently in the centre now, you can hear a hint of what the musicians hear. The echo returns quickly from every side.

Before you leave, stand once more near the middle of the circle. Look up at the open sky above you. Look at the columns, some worn smooth, some still sharp. Then walk to the edge and glance toward the older Alhambra beyond. Two worlds sit side by side here. Neither one erased the other completely. As you step back out into the sunlight, listen to your footsteps change on the stone — and carry that contrast with you.