The building has gone through different stages since its construction as an Islamic bath, later becoming integrated into a patio-house as a domestic space, and being again recovered and valued by Leopoldo Torres Balbás who expropriates it to try to recover its original state.
With the tranquility, experience and sensitivity to which this architect has accustomed us, the project focuses on the relationship of its occupants and visitors with the space, in order to make it a relevant place. The intervention highlights the passage of time through three windows of different periods and styles that articulate an emotional walk through the history of this almost mystical space. At the end of the museum tour, focused on the figure of Ángel Barrios, we find a large window-viewpoint that acts dually, prolonging the presence of the garden and the pool inside the rooms, and projecting the interior atmosphere outside.
The intervention has been possible thanks to the fact that the Alhambra "has always been alive", as Juan Domingo Santos recently commented, which has ensured its survival. Its occupation, having been lived and inhabited, has also implied transformations, layers of time, all relevant, that tell us about the movement that such a unique building has experienced throughout its history.
Description of project by Juan Domingo Santos
The Christian conquest of the Alhambra in 1492 led to the transformation of some of its architecture into private houses. In the case of the Bath of the Mosque, the Islamic construction was radically adapted into a courtyard house with a garden located on archaeological remains. Between 1883 and 1934 the Barrios family settled in this place, which became a meeting place for artists, poets, and musicians such as Sargent, Lorca, and Falla, a cultural focus of the life of the city and the Alhambra before the reconstruction of the Islamic bath by Torres Balbas in the early twentieth century in a process of historical restitution of the monument.
In this historic space surrounded by gardens, an intervention has been carried out that relates the old medieval buildings, other more recent ones, an archaeological garden, and the remains of a courtyard along with domestic objects, instruments, sounds, and musical compositions that prolong the memory to the present. The recovery is based on the diachronic interpretation of the history of this area and its transformations through the value of the architectural pre-existences, the objects, and their artistic and interpretative dimension. The music of the artist Ángel Barrios, the piano and the guitar, photographs and familiar objects arranged next to the medieval wall of the Bath constitute a scenario of diverse elements that evoke the history of this space and its transformations throughout history. The intervention incorporates an archaeological garden with a pool of water from an ancient Islamic palace that is intended to be recovered for public visitation and the celebration of musical evenings in continuity with the gardens of El Partal.
The intervention begins with a route that relates the spaces of the bath, the courtyard of the house, and the view of the archaeological garden in this sequential order, making visible the three most significant elements of the place. Three windows of different periods and styles articulate an emotional walk through the history of this space. At the end of the tour, a large window-viewpoint next to a carpet with the drawing of the Islamic bath and the musician's piano extends the presence of the garden and the pool into the interior of the rooms.
