عبقرية المهندسين المسلمين العرب في الأندلس قصر الحمراء The genius of Arab Muslim engineers

professor antonio fernandez puertas has spent his life studying the alambra he's discovered that the whole of the building from the ground plan to the wall decoration is based around one single ratio think it's everything is so perfect because everything is under control of the proportion and very very simple you notice that there is something magic about these buildings there is something marvelous in your surroundings it's very very simple this is the relation between the ground and the elevations of the buildings it's as simple as that the king ordered new palace he has limited area to build the palace to west east and south he was limited then he did something genius ingenious and beautiful the king of granada asked his architects to harmonize each and every space within the palace according to single set of proportions family of rectangles each related to the other if you want to get proportional rectangle you have the same base take the diagonal put it up yes and though you've got successive rectangular proportional rectangle the key to the ellambras design is the simple relationship between the side of square and its diagonal if we use the diagonal to make rectangle and then the diagonal from that rectangle to make another we get progression of rectangles the fourth rectangle is double the size of the first and the diagonals in this sequence are in fact the square roots of two three four and five magical sequence and are they doing all this just with two set squares and piece of string yes that's very clever yes every part of the intricate network of spaces all the courtyards the hallways the placement of every column was designed using inspired variations of this proportional system proportion is also in the elevation you have the kiosk here you build square and with the diagonal you swing it up nothing violated this incredibly elaborate system the alambra is triumph of mathematics as much as it is of aesthetics mathematical ingenuity is the root of its beauty but no one talks about this everyone looks at the alambra just as an aesthetic experience when you go to concert and you listen mostly you listen bit of them you listen very you don't know perhaps music but you notice that there is something magic yes it happens with that the same you feel it the alambra is so enchanting it's all too easy to view it as fairy tale palace isolated from history but that is romantic nonsense this palace was the product of very real very gritty history the alambra was built by religious empire which at the pinnacle of its power dominated land from china to africa an empire which had the wealth and intellect to build such masterpieces an empire whose history goes back to the deserts of 7th century arabia