Andalusian patio


Andalusian patios are stone patios typically acting as central open spaces in a home decorated with flowers and plants. They are an architectural evolution of the Roman atrium. It has long been customary to decorate houses and palaces with large open spaces and gardens dominated by fragrant flowers, fountains, canals, wells, ponds, other decorative figures,, frescoes with mythological scenes, and marble medallions, forming shapes each more convoluted but without breaking the harmony and with the intention to represent the Garden of the Paradise as imagined by the Classical and Muslim architects.
There are countless examples throughout the entire region of Andalusia, but where you can find the largest number ever assembled in one place is the Alhambra of Granada, the Alcazar of Seville and many other buildings and houses in the inner-city of Córdoba, which is where it developed its main features of patio in Andalusia from 10th century without producing many changes to the present day.
As trends evolved, the addition of windows, fences, balconies and other viewpoints into the garden from inside the house became commonplace. Some of these were designed to give a view of the patio while obscuring the viewer from outside observers.