Granada and the Alhambra: Forever inseparable in a single, unique, and marvelous existence.
The past of Granada emerges within its oldest images, from Romantic 19th-century engravings to the first photographs that captured the silhouette of the Sierra Nevada looming over the city. We see a Darro River still uncovered as it passed through the Carrera, bridges that have since disappeared, and a fertile plain (*La Vega*) that reached the very gates of the city, offering a landscape radically different from the one we know today.
Thanks to the lenses of pioneers such as Rafael Garzón and Rafael Señán, we possess visual evidence of the daily life of yesteryear: water carriers in Plaza Nueva, horse-drawn carriages along Reyes Católicos, and the first trams crossing the city center. Their studios within the Alhambra also portrayed a society caught between tradition and modernity, featuring local characters and Romantic tourists posing as Nasrid princesses.
Today, those glass-plate negatives serve as windows into the city’s memory. Comparing the Granada of the past with the Granada of the present allows us to appreciate its profound urban and social transformation, rediscovering the essence of a city that, although it changed its physiognomy, keeps its historical spirit intact in every photographed corner.
*None of the following historical photographs have been digitally retouched. They have all been sourced from public archives on the web and collected exactly as they were published to illustrate the not-so-remote "yesterday" of this Andalusian city for our visitors.*
