Al-Andalus and the Christian kingdoms
For almost eight hundred years Islamic and Christian architecture lived side by side on the peninsula. The mosque of Córdoba and the Alhambra in Granada stand alongside the cathedrals of Santiago, Burgos and León.
The mosque of Córdoba, begun in 785 and extended over two hundred years, is a forest of columns with double arches in red and white. The Alhambra in Granada, the 14th-century palace of the Nasrids, gathers its rooms around courtyards with water and walls of stucco.
The cathedral of Santiago de Compostela was the goal of one of Europe’s great pilgrimage routes, and Burgos, León and Toledo received Gothic cathedrals on French models. Mudéjar is the name of the style in which Muslim craftsmen built for Christian patrons.