Corral del Carbón 14th-Century Nasrid Caravanserai
Why is it significant?
Step before the breathtaking facade of the Corral del Carbón, an extraordinary fourteenth-century architectural monument that holds the unique distinction of being the only intact Islamic caravanserai surviving on the Iberian Peninsula.
Key Facts
| Place | Corral del Carbón 14th-Century Nasrid Caravanserai |
|---|---|
| Address | Calle Mariana Pineda 21, 18009 Granada, Spain |
| Geo Coordinates | 37.17490, -3.59780 |
| Part of Walk | Historic Center and Cathedral: Royal Tombs, Silk Bazaars and Golden Baroque |
| Generated | Generated |
Step before the breathtaking facade of the Corral del Carbón, an extraordinary fourteenth-century architectural monument that holds the unique distinction of being the only intact Islamic caravanserai surviving on the Iberian Peninsula. Constructed in 1336 under Nasrid Sultan Yusuf the First as the al-Fundaq al-Gidid, or «New Inn», this palatial commercial depot served as a secure roadside hotel and wholesale warehouse where traveling merchants arriving from North Africa, Genoa, and Egypt lodged on the upper floors while storing their valuable bales of silk, spices, and perfumes in ground-floor lockups. The building was strategically located near the city's main gates and silk markets, allowing foreign commercial caravans to secure their precious camel and mule loads immediately upon arriving in the capital.
Gaze up at the monumental entrance portal, a towering masterpiece of Nasrid architectural bravura: a soaring pointed horseshoe arch framed by intricate plaster muqarnas, or stalactite vaults, rests upon carved marble capitals. Above the arch runs a stunning open stone balcony supported by delicate corbels, flanked by braided plaster sebka latticework that exhibits the same breathtaking decorative refinement found in the royal apartments of the Alhambra.
After the Christian conquest of 1492, the building changed hands multiple times: it was used as a public theater for Spanish Golden Age plays, an aristocratic mansion, and eventually a commercial coal warehouse and weigh-station in the seventeenth century, which gave it its current popular name, Corral del Carbón. Today, the central courtyard with its stone fountain serves as a magical open-air venue for flamenco concerts and theatrical festivals.
Step through the entrance vestibule into the central patio: touch the stone trough in the center, which watered merchant mules and horses after arduous journeys across the Andalusian mountains.
Walk west along Calle Zacatín, the medieval silversmiths' lane, toward the historic open plaza of Bib-Rambla.