{"id":2744,"date":"2024-09-02T11:22:49","date_gmt":"2024-09-02T10:22:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.visitalandalus.org\/the-mosque-of-cordoba\/"},"modified":"2025-04-06T08:46:00","modified_gmt":"2025-04-06T07:46:00","slug":"the-mosque-of-cordoba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.visitalandalus.org\/en\/the-mosque-of-cordoba\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mosque of Cordoba"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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40 Years in the Olympus of World Culture<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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In 1984, the universal oratory of C\u00f3rdoba joined the elite ranks of exceptional monuments recognized by UNESCO<\/h4>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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On November 2, 1984, the Mosque of Cordoba<\/strong> received the most important heritage recognition on the planet. Unesco had just included the splendid Umayyad monument in the list of World Heritage<\/strong> along with the world’s most prodigious artistic treasures. Until then, only three hundred buildings and natural sites had been distinguished by the prestigious international organization. And the 8th General Assembly of Unesco’<\/strong>s World Heritage Committee, held in Buenos Aires, included another 23 monuments in its esteemed cultural catalog. <\/p>\n

Five of the new wonders added to the list were Spanish: the Alhambra<\/strong>, the Cathedral of Burgos<\/strong>, the Escorial<\/strong>, the G\u00fcel Park<\/strong> and the Mosque of Cordoba,<\/strong> which was given the identification number 313. In the official inventory, it appears by its English name: <\/span>The Mosque of C\u00f3rdoba<\/em>. Unesco based its proposal on four historical and cultural criteria. “It is a unique artistic achievement<\/strong>, for its breadth and for the audacity of an inner elevation that has had no school,” explained the first criterion.<\/span><\/p>\n

The remaining three principles underlined the exceptional values of the Islamic architecture<\/strong> displayed in the largest Muslim temple ever built on European soil. “The Mosque of Cordoba has exerted a considerable influence on Western Islamic art from the 8th century onwards” and constitutes an “irreplaceable testimony of the civilization of the Caliphate of Cordoba<\/strong> (929-1031) which made this city the rival of Constantinople and Baghdad”. The last criterion used by Unesco to defend the candidacy of the Mosque of Cordoba was concise and forceful: “It is one of the exemplary types of religious architecture of Islam”.<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n

So much for the four criteria. The official text also included a justification of barely five paragraphs. It was headed by the historical episode<\/strong> that confronted the bishop of Cordoba with the City Council in the 16th century over an eccentric initiative that was to radically transform the magnificent Andalusian building: the construction of a Catholic Cathedral<\/strong> inside it. It began as follows: “In 1523, when the Cabildo decided to build a Cathedral directly in the middle of the forest of columns of the old Aljama Mosque, the City Council was alarmed and protested to Charles V with these words: ‘What is to be destroyed will<\/strong> never ever be replaced by anything<\/strong> approaching perfection'”. <\/span><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Mihrab of the Cordoba Mosque<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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The rest of the story is well known. The corregidor Luis de la Cerda<\/strong> issued a decree prohibiting any mason or worker from touching a stone of the Mosque of Cordoba under penalty of death. The next day, the prelate excommunicated the mayor of the city<\/strong> and unleashed one of the most bizarre institutional disputes in the history of Spain. The king finally granted the bishop permission to build a huge transept in the heart of the Mezquita, and Alonso Manrique<\/strong> disfigured the superb Islamic oratory forever. Years later, when Charles V contemplated the havoc wrought on the monument, he uttered those famous words that legend attributes to him: “You have destroyed what was unique in the world<\/strong> to put in its place what can be seen everywhere”. <\/p>\n

From a historical perspective, it was one of the first major lawsuits to be brought against the backdrop of the protection of the heritage of an architectural jewel. That battle was lost. There is no doubt about it. But time has ended up consecrating one of the most amazing examples of cultural and religious syncretism<\/strong> on the planet. And that is no small thing in a world in need of symbols of intercultural coexistence. From this point of view, the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba is a paradigmatic icon.<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n

November 1984 was the end of a long road. The history of the international recognition of the Mosque of Cordoba<\/strong> began twelve years earlier. And in a paradoxical way. So let’s go back to 1972. Spain was living the death throes of Franco’s regime and the City Council of Cordoba was ruled by Antonio Alarc\u00f3n Constant<\/strong>, the last mayor of the dictatorship before Julio Anguita, already in 1979, inaugurated the municipal democracy. <\/span><\/p>\n

On May 17, 1972, Antonio Alarc\u00f3n<\/strong> convened a municipal plenary session. And before the highest body of the city he made an unexpected announcement. “Given the characteristics of our Mosque,” said Alarc\u00f3n, according to the minutes of the city council, “the undersigned mayor has the honor to propose that it is agreed to submit a petition” to Unesco as a candidate for International Monument.<\/strong> The alderman had heard that Unesco was preparing a worldwide distinction for those emblematic buildings or natural treasures of exceptional universal value. And the Mosque of Cordoba<\/strong> deserved all the recognitions. <\/span><\/p>\n

That same day he appointed a special commission to prepare a report to accredit the uniqueness of this “unique jewel of Arab art”<\/strong> and “the most transcendental building of all Spaniards”. Alarc\u00f3n was convinced that the great Umayyad oratory of the 8th century had all the necessary characteristics to aspire to the highest planetary award. But not only that. The mayor’s move hid another objective that would soon come to light.<\/span><\/p>\n

On July 31, 1972, Antonio Alarc\u00f3n<\/strong> convenes a new municipal plenary session. He takes the floor. And he says the following: “The most excellent municipal Corporation has maintained throughout history and with respect to the Mosque as a unique architectural monument of the world, a position contrary to those works that attempted to undermine the integrity<\/strong> of the artistic monument”. Sepulchral silence in the Consistory. What the hell does the mayor mean? To what works of this kind is he referring to? It was not necessary to be very perspicacious to pull the thread. Antonio Alarc\u00f3n is talking about the construction of the Cathedral<\/strong> on the axis of the Mosque no less than 450 years earlier. And he connects the City Hall with the frontal opposition that the corregidor Luis de la Cerda<\/strong> presented to that controversial episcopal initiative. <\/p>\n

But the alderman’s words are only a brief introduction to the bombshell he is about to drop. In October 1972, Alarc\u00f3n announces, the City Council of C\u00f3rdoba<\/strong> is going to organize a meeting of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), Unesco’s advisory body. What for? The mayor himself explains. “In order to carry out on the ground all the studies aimed at the conservation in all its purity<\/strong> of the Mosque as an International Monument”, he declared. Few in the plenary understood what exactly the alderman meant. His words hid an unprecedented project that the City Council was willing to lead. What project? Alarc\u00f3n continued speaking. And he revealed the willingness of some Arab heads of government to help the Mosque of Cordoba “return as far as possible to its original state”.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

The minutes of that session are the history of C\u00f3rdoba. And it rests in the Municipal Archives of the city. Antonio Alarc\u00f3n<\/strong> had just announced the execution of a stratospheric operation of architectural surgery only comparable to the relocation of the temple of Abu Simbel in Upper Egypt four years earlier to save it from the Aswan Dam. The idea was to extract stone by stone the Cathedral<\/strong> that Bishop Alonso Martinez ordered to raise to restore the Mosque of Cordoba to its “purity”. And Franco himself was punctually informed of the matter. <\/p>\n

Mayor Alarc\u00f3n was not alone. He was not even its precursor. The surprising project had been conceived by the famous architect Rafael de la Hoz Arderius,<\/strong> at the time Director General of Housing of the last Francoist government. And the candidacy of the Mosque of Cordoba for Unesco’s highest world recognition was part of a plan that also included the decoupling of the Cathedral from<\/strong> the monumental complex. De la Hoz and Antonio Alarc\u00f3n thought that the international organization was going to validate their pharaonic architectural purification project. <\/p>\n

But his calculations failed. And the plan would soon collapse like a house of cards. De la Hoz<\/strong> had important levers within the public administration. But not all of them. The Royal Academy of Fine Arts<\/strong> stopped the initiative in its tracks. The Icomos meeting was suspended and postponed until April 1973. By then, the project of “purification” of the Mosque had already been diluted like a sugar cube in coffee. <\/p>\n

At the end of April, international experts convened by Icomos signed the so-called Cordoba Declaration<\/em><\/strong>. The document was solemnly presented in the chapel of Santa Teresa of the Cathedral Mosque under the tripartite presidency of the advisory body of Unesco, the City Council and the Bishopric. Everything had changed. The agreed text left no room for doubt. “Thanks to an admirable formal achievement, which makes it a universally admired masterpiece, the Cathedral Mosque of Cordoba, which contains in an exceptional way the expression of the meeting and overlapping of Christianity and Islam<\/strong>, responds so perfectly to the characteristics of the monument belonging to different cultures, that it should be considered as one of the most significant international examples and as an integral part of the cultural heritage of Humanity”.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

Far from considering the Catholic addition of the 16th century as a discordant and incompatible element with the whole, the signers of the <\/span>Declaration of Cordoba<\/em> They hail him as a symbol of the universal embrace of cultures.<\/strong> And what is even better: they unequivocally endorse his candidacy for the award that is about to be inaugurated. There is no longer any doubt. The Cathedral would remain the Siamese sister of the Mosque, both united in a single body of hybrid architecture. Eleven years later, the monumental complex would be inscribed on the coveted UNESCO World Heritage<\/strong> List .<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n

Since then, its international prestige has only grown. The attraction of the Cathedral Mosque increases every year all over the world. In 1984, the monument was only visited by a few thousand tourists.<\/strong> Forty years later, the superb Andalusian temple has already exceeded 2 million annual visitors and is approaching the records of the Alhambra. The year 2019 the two Andalusian jewels marked their historical record. While the Cathedral Mosque reached 2.1 million tourists,<\/strong> the Alhambra exceeded 2.7 million. The pandemic abruptly halted the unstoppable rise of cultural tourism in the two main Andalusian monuments. But four years later, four decades after they were added to UNESCO’s universal catalog,<\/strong> the two Islamic icons are regaining vigor and strength. <\/span><\/p>\n

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This activity is co-financed by Fundaci\u00f3n Las Fuentes and the Municipal Institute for Economic Development and Employment of C\u00f3rdoba.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

40 Years in the Olympus of World Culture In 1984, the universal oratory of C\u00f3rdoba joined the elite ranks of exceptional monuments recognized by UNESCO On November 2, 1984, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2674,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[71,70,68,69,67,66],"colab_actividad":[],"colab_ubicacion":[],"class_list":["post-2744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-al-andalus-en","tag-architecture","tag-cordoba-en","tag-islamic-art","tag-mosque","tag-world-heritage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visitalandalus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visitalandalus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visitalandalus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitalandalus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitalandalus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2744"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitalandalus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4142,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitalandalus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2744\/revisions\/4142"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitalandalus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visitalandalus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitalandalus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitalandalus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2744"},{"taxonomy":"colab_actividad","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitalandalus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/colab_actividad?post=2744"},{"taxonomy":"colab_ubicacion","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitalandalus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/colab_ubicacion?post=2744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}