The Portal Oratory, also known as the ‘Tower of the Miḥrāb’, is a small, rectangular tower located between the Alhambra’s Nasrid Palaces and the Generalife Gardens. Often overlooked by visitors, its liturgical purpose and the peripheral location between the static architectural spaces of the palaces and the flowing nature of the gardens is what endows it with significance. The interior of the tower is divided into two chambers, an anteroom and the inner room housing an exquisite, precisely-oriented horseshoe-arch miḥrāb, decorated with stunning carved stucco biomorphic motifs and a wide range of calligraphic inscriptions.

This session explores the importance of proportion in architectural compositions through geometric analysis of the miḥrāb wall of the Portal Oratory. Investigate the geometric patterns in the window-grilles above the miḥrāb, which integrate the proportions of the architectural space of the Oratory with other ornamental patterns of the Alhambra.