There are three independent areas in the Royal Palace:
o El Mexuar, where justice was administered, and the affairs of State carried out. It has a raised chamber, closed off by lattice framework, where the sultan used to sit to listen to the requests of the people without being seen. At the end of the hall, there is an Oratory or Prayer Room, a small room facing the direction of Mecca, richly decorated with plasterwork and which overlooks the Albaicín.
After the conquest, the Catholic Monarchs ordered the interior of this hall to be modified, and turned it into a chapel, of which the choir balustrade still exists.
The outer walls have undergone so many modifications that it is impossible to know what they originally looked like. This administrative area is preceded by two courtyards; in the first one the ruins of a small mosque with its minaret remains, whereas the second, known as the Machuca Courtyard, is home to the tower of the same name.
Pedro Machuca, who designed the Palace of Carlos V, and other architects who devoted their lives to building this monument, used to live in this part of the complex.
Entering the Mexuar we come to the Cuarto Dorado, or Golden Room, which owes its name to the gilded cupola, and the Mexuar Courtyard with the splendid façade of the Comares Palace, decorated with mocárabes, (typical Moorish decorative plaster stuccowork), plasterwork, and tiles, with a cedar wood skirting with decorative motifs of pine cones and shells.
o The Comares Palace was ordered to be built by the ruler Yusuf I, combining the representative function of the monarchy and the official management of affairs of State with the private living quarters of the monarch. At the centre of the palace, we find the Courtyard of the Myrtles, with galleries with porticoes at each end. This courtyard has had different names throughout history. Its present-day name is due to the myrtle bushes or “arrayanes”, whose bright green colour is in stark contrast with the white marble flooring of the courtyard.
It is overlooked by the Comares Tower, which houses inside the Hall of Ambassadors. This is where the monarch, in the company of his viziers, gave official audiences. The hall is square-shaped, and there is not a single inch of wall that is not decorated with Kufic plasterwork as decorative calligraphy motifs, plant motifs or ataurique, and latticework comprised of geometric shapes. The cupola with stars represents the heavens. Before we reach this place we have the la Sala de la Barca, at the end of which are the bedchambers of the sultan.
To the East of the palace are the Comares Baths, built in the Moorish style following the models of the Roman thermal baths. All the remaining decoration is from Christian times, as these baths have been in a poor state of repair over the centuries, and they have therefore been restored and rebuilt several times.
o The Palace of the Lions was constructed on the orders of Mohammed V, son of Yusuf I, as a private area for the royal family and the harem. It gets its name from the fountain supported by twelve lions made of marble found in the Courtyard of the Lions. The area is an allegory on paradise, an oasis in stone in which water flows, and 124 columns of supporting arches symbolize a forest of palm trees. This courtyard is the first in which a new architectural model is used: Two channels of water that flow out of streams found in two large rooms: the halls of the Abencerrajes and of the Two Sisters.
These halls are opposite each other and are renowned for their magnificent cupolas of mocárabes or honeycomb effect of delicate plaster stuccowork. Popular tradition tells us that in the Hall of the Abencerrajes, apparently the king´s private rooms, the knights of that name were killed by beheading. In the Hall of the Two Sisters, the name refers to the enormous slabs of marble on either side of the central fountain and the fact that a poet of the XIV Century compared them to two sisters. In the interior is the Mirador de Lindaraja, or Lookout Place of the Queen. This is a small room named after the favourite of the sultan, which by virtue of its exquisite decoration is one of the most beautiful places in the Alhambra.
The Hall of the Mocárabes is the simplest one of the entire Palace of the Lions. It is near the former entrance of the Palace and its name comes from the ceiling vault of mocárabes (decorative elements of Nasrid art) that covered it. Unfortunately, this had to be pulled down as it was in a sorry state after an explosion of a powder magazine in 1590.
Another of the palace rooms in the Hall of the Kings, so-called because of a painting on the dome of one of the three existing rooms, which represent ten monarchs. The hall is divided into seven parts: three square rooms, separated by two rectangular sections and two bedchambers at the end of them. This layout and decoration of mozárabes intensifies the light that enters the hall.
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