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Patronato de la Alhambra – the organisation responsible for managing Granada’s Alhambra palace – will draft a new masterplan in 2026. It will be a guide for the coming decade that will replace and modernise an older document, still in use, that had laid out guidelines for 2007 to 2010. According to the Patronato, some ideas in the old plan were “very outdated”, and that a new approach was needed.
On Wednesday 10th and Thursday 11th December, a conference was held to gather the views and opinions which will be reflected on the masterplan. After a series of sessions on heritage, sustainability and public access, as well as security, the expert’s ideas will be combined with reality to create the master plan.
The premises for the design of the next decade were discussed under the title “Rethinking the Future of the Alhambra”. “This conference will provide us with the vision of the world’s leading experts in conservation on the great challenges for the next ten years,” said director of the Patronato, Rodrigo Ruiz-Jiménez.
To predict the final document, the plan must look into the future to see how the market will react. As the Alhambra builders were foresighted with their water routes, so will it be with imagining the Alhambra 2030. How will its visitor flow be and how will this jewel coexist alongside artificial intelligence and other technologies?
The new document will look to the future, “but the beauty is that the essence does not change”, Ruiz-Jiménez said, adding: “The great love for the Alhambra, the desire to preserve it for future generations and the focus not only on the visit but on all cultural activities will continue. The monument will change from being a source of growth and development for the city into an engine of advancement.
Architect Pedro Salmerón, co-author of the current document, will be involved in drafting the next one. He said: “We face new climatic hazards and overcrowding among tourists.”
Salmerón highlighted that the Alhambra’s greatest conservation resource, the income from visitors, “is becoming the monument’s greatest threat”. To deal with this situation, “we must have a vision”. Salmerón suggests starting from an optimistic point of view “and not a defeatist one” and creating a commission to monitor the plan to ensure its implementation.
New technologies and public visits
Two key points in the new document are the revision of public visits and the use of new technology. “The focus of the visit should be on quality, not numbers. It must be an unforgettable experience. We will climb the Alhambra as if we were on a giant pyramid, until we find what is most interesting to each individual. It must be personal and evoke an emotional response, tailored for each individual,” he said.
It will take many years to create a personalisation of the visit using technology and data. A new route will modify the flow (the way the tour is developed) and the quotas. The Patronato’s director describes that “there are people who like the Alhambra for the engineers. They may enjoy the way the water flows, the construction of the towers, the geometry and the history.”
The trend in conservation “will be preventive” and that visitors know that it is something that depends a lot on them, according to Ruiz-Jiménez. To carry out this new plan a conservation heat map will be drawn up “to be clear about where the weakest and strongest points are and to be able to apply this type of technology and be more proactive”, concluded Ruiz-Jiménez.
