RenEU - Plaza de Bibarrambla, Alcaicería and Zacatín

Plaza de Bibarrambla, Alcaicería and Zacatín

Plaza de Bibrambla, one of the areas of the city modified after the conquest and transformed into an emblematic public space

Its rectangular form made it suitable for numerous public events, and it also had a strategic location near the city’s main civil and religious institutions

Detail of the Plan of Granada drawn up by Ambrosio de Vico and engraved by Francisco Heylan in the late 16th century, where the importance of the plaza as a new space for public events is appreciable

The Plaza de Bibarrambla (or Bib-Rambla) and its surrounding area were a fundamental target of the Christian urban reforms that quickly transformed the Muslim city. The intricate mediaeval district of El Arenal was demolished and turned into a open space for entertainments, celebrations, festivities and major public events of all kinds, such as livestock fairs, equestrian and taurine spectacles, autos-da-fé and religious processions like that of Corpus Christi. The plaza's central importance was consolidated by such momentous occurrences as the burning of eighty thousand Arabic manuscripts from the Muslim university of Granada at the orders of Cardinal Cisneros in a bid to do away with every vestige of Muslim culture. In 1583 it became a mercantile and commercial centre with the construction of the Casa de los Miradores (House of the Belvederes), which housed the offices of the Cabildo (city council) and the Royal Customs House for the inspection of cloths, canvases and rugs. On one side of the square is the entrance to the Alcaicería, a merchants' quarter founded by Sultan Yusuf I in 1318 for the trade in exotic and luxury goods like silk. Only a small part of the original district is preserved, since it had more than two hundred shops and ten entrance gates that were closed at night and heavily guarded. The adjacent Calle Zacatín was the main street of the Alcaicería. Besides silk, other goods on sale included silver, gold and perfume. Today's Plaza de Bibirrambla has a special charm, with its typical flower stalls and its crowded bars and cafés. Created as a main square, it still preserves the flavour of one.

The urban space of the Plaza de Bibirrambla and the adjacent Calle Zacatín and Alcaicería quarter formed the civic nucleus of commercial activity in Nasrid Granada next to the Great Mosque or Alhama, in accordance with the traditional structure of the Islamic city. This pattern was maintained after the Christian conquest, although it was subjected to a rationalist urban and architectural replanning in line with the western thought of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The Plaza de Bibirrambla even retained its name, but was given the regular form of a closed quadrilateral where the orthodox superimposition of architectural orders was essayed for the first time in Spain in a public building representative of local power, the Balcony of the City Hall (no longer extant) designed by Diego de Siloé as a tribune for the city councillors during the major festivities that took place in the square. The Alcaicería or silk market, the principal economic activity of Muslim Granada, retained its structure of narrow streets filled entirely with shops until it was destroyed by a fire in 1843. Its current appearance is the result of its subsequent reconstruction, which altered its architecture but maintained its commercial function. The same is true of Calle Zacatín, which borders the quarter and ends at Bibirrambla.