Alcazaba of Baza (Granada) Spain, Rediscovered

Abstract

The Andalusian medieval citadels are walled enclosures that, strategically placed on hills, still continue showing their defensive function inside the city and the surrounding territory. There are still good examples in the south of Spain, especially concentrated in the last territories of Al-Andalus. To the north of the old Nasrid kingdom of Granada, the city of Baza, with a brilliant Iberian and Roman past, also preserves some remains of its medieval past in its urban fabric. However, the Alcazaba of Baza, which was its main medieval architectural landmark, has suffered during the last century a lamentable process of abandonment and destruction that has almost made it disappear. Today its limits are unrecognizable and there are hardly visible parts of its walls or its towers. Anyone that visits it for the first time only recognizes a central empty space in the urban fabric. It has been mistreated by sporadic inappropriate uses, most of the time in disuse and converted into residual space of the city, a focus of marginality where it is not convenient to go. Despite its poor state of preservation, the fact of being an old military structure makes it a Historical Place of Interest (Bien de Interés Cultural–BIC-), the highest level of protection granted by the Law of Spanish Historical Heritage (1985). Since then, with greater or lesser fortune, the urban planning of Baza has recognized its values, although it has allowed lamentable interventions inside