Casa del Chapiz: A Historic Morisco Residential Complex in Granada
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.2
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Spain
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Crown of Castile, Nasrid, Spanish
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Elite Residence
On this page11 sections
History
Casa del Chapiz is a residential complex in Granada, Spain, formed through the adaptation of two sixteenth-century Morisco houses built over or alongside earlier Nasrid traditions. The Nasrids were the Muslim ruling dynasty of the Emirate of Granada, whose refined courtyard architecture continued to influence the complex after the Christian conquest of Granada in 1492. Since 1932, the restored buildings have housed the School of Arabic Studies.
Nasrid and Morisco origins
The two residences probably belonged originally to an Arab palace. The principal house appears to have been constructed over the remains of a fourteenth-century Nasrid palace, while the smaller house was probably built as a new structure during the same period. Together, the buildings reflect the transition from mature Nasrid domestic architecture to its later survival in Morisco Granada.
The principal residence was rebuilt in the early sixteenth century by the Morisco Lorenzo el Chapiz. Moriscos were Muslims in Christian Spain who had been compelled to convert to Christianity, together with their descendants. Lorenzo’s name became attached both to the complex and to the street on which it stands. His brother-in-law, Hernán López el Ferí, built the smaller residence during the same period.
Expropriation and later ownership
In 1571, the two houses were expropriated because their owners had taken part in the Morisco uprising, a major rebellion against Christian rule. Under the Incorporation Charter of Philip II, the properties passed to the Castilian Crown. Philip II was the Habsburg king of Spain from 1556 to 1598.
In 1583, Philip II granted the properties by royal decree to his secretary, Juan Vázquez de Salazar. He incorporated them into the Salazar trust, which later rented the houses to different occupants and institutions, including the Royal Company of Factories and Commerce of Granada.
Over time, the residences became communal housing. Tenants established private businesses and small industries within them, contributing to the deterioration of the buildings. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the complex had reached a near-ruinous condition.
Protection and rehabilitation
Casa del Chapiz was declared an architectural monument in 1919, and ownership passed to the Spanish state in 1929. Restoration was carried out between 1919 and 1932. From 1929 to 1932, Leopoldo Torres Balbás directed the rehabilitation, which prepared the complex for the newly established School of Arabic Studies. The site is recognized as a Spanish Property of Cultural Interest, a legal designation for protected cultural heritage, with designations recorded in 1919 and 2017.
Remains
Layout and setting
The two houses occupy a large parcel at the corner of the Cuesta del Chapiz and the Camino del Sacromonte, in the Albaicín. The latter route formerly led toward Guadix. An orchard and garden form part of the property. Although the complex is commonly named in the singular, it consists of two independent residential units with different origins. They share a range of rooms between them, a feature that once led to the mistaken interpretation that the buildings were a single house with two courtyards.
Access formerly began at the Placeta del Peso de la Harina, near the start of the Camino del Sacromonte, through an area shared by both residences. At the end of this approach stood the entrance vestibule of the principal house.
The principal house
Courtyard and Nasrid elements
The principal house is arranged around a large rectangular courtyard whose long axis runs from north to south. The northern and eastern ranges survive, together with the beginning of the western range. Torres Balbás identified the enclosed-courtyard plan during the rehabilitation. An unusually elongated original pool remains at the center. The northern portico retains white-marble columns supporting its arches, reused from the Nasrid period.
Galleries and upper rooms
Behind the central arch of the northern portico is the entrance portal of the principal hall. Its marble pivot sockets survived into the early nineteenth century and are now held in the Alhambra Museum, which preserves objects and architectural elements from the Alhambra and related settings.
Lorenzo el Chapiz added the upper floor to suit the tastes and requirements of his period. The arrangement of its volumes was drawn by the Englishman Richard Ford between 1831 and 1833. A large window in the southern range, which opened toward the Generalife, the historic palace and garden estate associated with Granada’s Nasrid rulers, is now in Spain’s National Archaeological Museum.
The galleries are wooden and have balustrades with turned balusters, reflecting Renaissance influence. The eastern gallery was entirely rebuilt during the rehabilitation. The principal upper rooms have large wooden roof frames made with a pair-and-collar-beam system, in which paired rafters are stabilized by horizontal collar beams.
The house of Hernán López el Ferí
The smaller residence is considerably more compact than the principal house. Its entrance vestibule has openings placed away from the center, making a direct view into the rectangular courtyard difficult. A small pool occupies the middle of the courtyard.
The house follows a functional Mudéjar arrangement. Mudéjar architecture developed in Christian Iberia under strong Islamic influence and combines Islamic forms and techniques with Gothic and Renaissance elements. Wooden galleries run along all four sides of the courtyard and provide access to the rooms on the upper floor.
Its galleries bring together features from several architectural traditions characteristic of Granadan Mudéjar work. Nasrid elements include muqarnas on the posts supporting the gallery roofs. Muqarnas are three-dimensional, honeycomb-like forms used in brackets, cornices, vaults, and transitional parts of buildings.
Gothic features appear in the shape of the lobed brackets, which have projecting pigeon-breast profiles beneath them, and in the straight balusters of the railings. Renaissance details include carved vases on the fronts of the brackets along the shorter sides and the capitals of two marble columns.
Water supply
A cistern beneath the northern range stored water carried by the Aynadamar channel. This historic waterway served Granada’s water-supply and irrigation systems. At Casa del Chapiz, the stored water supported both household use and the irrigation of the orchard.
