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When the Almohads first took the power in Morocco from the Almovarids in the 1100's AD, they showed their strength by building monuments in the cities of their new empire. They built the Koutoubia mosque right over the top of the old Almovarid palace in Marrakesh! Also, the Almoravids had not allowed people to build minarets, which they thought were wrong, so the Almohads built lots of minarets to show that things had changed. (Compare this minaret to the Romanesque bell tower of St. Germain des Pres in Paris, which was built about 1000 AD).

By 1250 AD, the Christian kings of Spain had pushed the Almohads south so that they only ruled just the city of Granada, far in the south of Spain. There in Granada, the Almohads built their palace, the Alhambra (it means "the Red" in Arabic, probably because of the red color of the bricks). Because the Christian kings were still trying to get the Almohads out of Spain, the Alhambra is first of all a fortress.

t's on top of a steep hill, and it has a fortified wall all the way around it. Originally all the rooms were arranged around a central courtyard, but gradually people added more small courtyards with more rooms around them to make the palace bigger. The outside walls are all plain, with all the decoration on the inside, to show that the palace is meant for insiders and not outsiders.

On the inside, though, the carvers covered every inch of the Alhambra with patterns like lace. In accordance with Islamic rules, they didn't carve any images of people or animals (though the lion fountain you see here is an exception). Everything is either patterns of leaves, Arabic letters, or abstract geometrical patterns. They also used a lot of glazed clay tiles to decorate the walls. In the courtyards, there are fountains everywhere. Because it is always hot in Granada, they didn't build many closed rooms - most of the rooms are open on one side to the courtyards, or separated only by lacy wooden screens.

The builders even carved the ceilings at the Alhambra palace into fancy lace. This is a barrel vaulted ceiling carved out of different kinds of wood, with ivory inlays. Carving by hand, with only iron chisels, this kind of work took years to finish.

Giralda | Seville

The minaret of the great Almohad mosque that dominates Seville is the city’s most important monument. The name Giralda is derived from the weathervane-like statue that crowns the building. It has survived in full, with the exception of the very top which was replaced in the AH 10th / AD 16th century with a Christian bell tower.
It is made of brick and has ramps connecting the seven superposed rooms. The decorative networks of rhombuses that spring from the Cordoban capitals and columns salvaged by the Almohads from the ruins of Madinat al-Zahra are also made of brick.



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Remparts of Silves| Faro

The town wall at Silves surrounds some 7 hectares and is the most beautiful military monument from the Islamic period in Portugal. The Almohad wall (second half of the AH 6th / AD 12th century) was erected on the remains of existing walls that needed to be extended and reinforced to counter the Christian military advance.
The remains of this defensive structure include the Loulé Gate, a monumental chicane entrance that was the main route to the medina. Long sections of adobe wall have also survived, some intact, along with square freestanding (flanking) and adjoined towers in red brick.



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Bab Rouah | Rabat

Bab Rwah is the largest gateway in the Rabat town wall, built by the Almohad Ya'qub al-Mansur. Measuring 28 m wide, 12 m tall and 27 m deep, its four chicanes and its guard rooms reveal its defensive function. The gateway is flanked by two bastions projecting 5 m, which accentuates its majestic character. The archway itself, framed by a kufic inscription, is richly decorated with interlacing designs, archivolts and festoons. Corner columns with capitals support lobed corbels. The existing arch, slightly pointed and stilted, was added in the AH 12th / AD 18th century.



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Alcazab & Espantaperros Tower| Badajoz


This complex was one of the prototypes of Almohad military architecture in al-Andalus and it is a good example of the complicated defensive system used by the Almohads: chicane entrances making it difficult to enter the complex and widespread use of barbicans or outer walls around the main wall combined with flanking towers such as the Espantaperros.
This extremely important strategic point in the Guadiana plain became an essential part of the defence against the Christian kingdoms when the city became part of the Almohad empire.


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Al Mahdia Kasbah| Kenitra

In the AH 4th / AD 10th century, a settlement was founded at the mouth of the Sebu, a navigable river linking the Atlantic to the plains of the Gharb and Fez. Fitted out as a naval dockyard in the 6th / 12th century, it was taken in the 11th / 17th century by the Spanish, who erected a fortress.
In the 12th / 18th century, Mulay Isma'il set up a kasbah in the fortress, with a mosque, barracks, madrasa and a luxurious seigneurial residence, the remains of which include four large rooms around a zellij-paved courtyard, a garden and a hammam. He also constructed a monumental gateway flanked by two projecting towers in the wall.



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Paderne Castle| Albufeira

Paderne Castle is in the Barrocal area, just over 10 km north of the Algarve coast. Its location, atop a magnificently steep hill, would have significantly hindered any attempted assaults. With a single chicane entrance defended by a flanking tower, the 10,000m2 enclosure could only have served as a military stronghold or strategic fortress, and its location must have been linked to the important road to Albufeira and the brick bridge over the Quarteira River at the bottom of the slope.



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Oudayas Casbah| Rabat

Since the AH 4th / AD 10th century there has been a ribat on the left bank of the Bou Regreg, where the Almoravids built a kasbah, which was destroyed and then rebuilt by the Almohads. Abandoned in the 7th / 13th century, it was not revived until the 11th / 17th century with the arrival of the Moriscos expelled from Spain, who lived there for 50 years and devoted themselves to piracy. Surrounded by a tall, thick Almohad wall with a monumental gateway decorated with carvings and leading to a row of three rooms, the kasbah includes an Almohad mosque, the oldest in Rabat, and a princely 'Alawid pavilion, now a museum.



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Mertola| Beja

Preservation of the basic structure of the building, which dates to the last quarter of the AH 6th / AD 12th century, although the roof was rebuilt in the mid-16th century, afford this church-mosque an irresistible exoticism. The horseshoe arches leading to the sahn (courtyard of the place of worship) and the mihrab, discovered some decades ago, have all survived.
The original building had five naves, each with a gabled roof and four small doors (three leading to the courtyard and one to the outside) with slightly stilted horseshoe arches framed with alfiz panels.



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Almohad Mosque| Tunis

This mosque was built at the high-point of the kasbah, once defended by strong walls and the site of the palace of the powerful sultan Abu Zakariyya al-Hafsi. Its status was elevated from courtyard oratory to Friday mosque, a status enjoyed only by the Zaytuna Mosque before the conversion, and it was allocated to worship according to Hanafi school after the arrival of the Turks. The most important part of the mosque is its minaret, which borrows decorative elements from the Almohad towers of the mosque of the Marrakesh kasbah, the Hassan Tower in Rabat and the Giralda in Seville.



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Kutubia Mosque| Marrakesh

The current, imposing Kutubiya is the second mosque of this name built by the Almohad 'Abd al-Mu'min, the first destroyed as it was wrongly oriented.
The building consists of 17 naves running lengthways, and the transverse nave beside the qibla wall has five large arches and five muqarnas (honeycomb) cupolas. The vast mihrab arch is sumptuously decorated. The rectangular courtyard has a circular ablutions basin. The square-plan minaret rises 77 m and is decorated differently on each face. In both architecture and decoration, this is one of the crowning achievements of Islamic art in the West.





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Hassan Tower| Rabat

Hassan Tower or Tour Hassan is the minaret of an incomplete mosque in Rabat, Morocco. Begun in 1195, the tower was intended to be the largest minaret in the world along with the mosque, also intended to be the world's largest. In 1199, sultan Yacoub al-Mansour died, and construction on the mosque stopped. The tower only reached 44m (140ft), about half of its intended 86m (260ft) height. The rest of the mosque was also left incomplete, with only the beginnings of several walls and 200 columns being constructed.




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Tinmel| High Atlas

Tinmel (also Tin Mal) is a small moutainious village High Atlas in N'ffis valley at 100 km of Marrakech. The Almohad conquerors left this village to conduct their military campaigns against the Almoravids.
With the seizure of Marrakech in 1147, Tinmel becomes the spiritual capital and the artistic centre of the Almohad empire. After the decline of the dynasty, it became again a simple village of the High Atlas.
Today, there remain only some ruins of the wall which surrounded the city and those of the large mosque. Tinmel occupies however a paramount place in the history of Morocco and the Maghreb.
The village is home of the tombs of the Almohad rulers.


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Gold Tower| Seville

The Torre del Oro (Spanish for "Gold Tower") is a military watchtower built in Seville, Spain during the Almohad dynasty in order to control access to the city via the Guadalquivir river. The tower was built as part of the defensive works running from the Alcázar to the river. The tower may have received its name from the golden tiles which cover its dome and may have once adorned the rest of the tower.
Constructed in the first third of the 13th century, it has twelve sides, and from its base a chain would be stretched, underwater, across the river to another fort on the opposite shore, thereby preventing enemy ships from traveling upstream to the port of Seville.



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Menara Gardens| Marrakesh

The gardens are located at the west of Marrakech at the gates of the Atlas mountains. They were built in the 12th century (c. 1130) by the Almohad ruler Abd al-Mu'min.
The menara term has been added after the present structure (the pavillon) was founded in the 19th century by the Alaouite ruler Abderrahmane of Morocco where he used to stay in summertime.
The Menara contain a pavilion and a basin (an artificial lake) surrounded by orchards and olive groves. The intention of the basin was to irrigate the surrounding gardens and orchards using a sophisticated system called Qanat. The basin is supplied with water thanks to an old hydraulic system which conveys water from the mountains located at 30 km approximately away from Marrakech.


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Hassan Tower, Rabat

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Good post. I'm interested historical architecture. Are the structures in Tin Mal from the Almohad period ?

Good post. I'm interested historical architecture. Are the structures in Tin Mal from the Almohad period ?

Tinmal was the spiritual capital and the artistic centre of the Moroccan Almohad empire

Tinmal was the spiritual capital and the artistic centre of the Moroccan Almohad empire

It would be nice also to have a similar thread for the Almoravids and Marinids if it's not a difficult task. :cheers:

Good idea ;)

You can also see this threads:

XIXth century Architecture

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=443689

Saadian Architecture (1554-1659)

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=443697

Contemporary Moroccan Architecture

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=470751

fantastic old arch that's truth ....