Villa Alhambra (Sliema)

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Villa Alhambra, street front

The Villa Alhambra is a late 19th century villa on Rudolphe Street in Sliema on the main Maltese island of Malta . It is a Grade 1 building under monument protection .

history

The Maltese architect and Superintendent of Public Works Emanuele Luigi Galizia designed the Villa Alhambra together with two other residential buildings ( Villa Alcazar and Villa Pax ) as an ensemble in the Spanish-Moorish style in the 1880s . At that time Sliema was nothing more than a rural settlement overlooking Marsamxett Harbor and set in the middle of fields. The three newly built properties were the first planned structures in this place, they formed the entrance gate to the main street of the village, now called Rudolphe Street , and were visible from afar.

The building served him and his family as a summer residence and until 2003 was the residence of the Galizia family, who later called themselves Caruana Galizia. Since the community of heirs had meanwhile grown to more than 30 people, it was then sold on the condition that the building could not be demolished by the new owner in order to build blocks of flats at this point. In cooperation with the Maltese monument protection authority MEPA , a company was commissioned to carry out the necessary extensive restoration work on the building and the sculptures.

description

The single-storey building shows a striking exotic style that has both Indian ( Mughal architecture ) and Moorish ( Alhambra ) influences. This is expressed, for example, in the horseshoe-shaped arches and the perforated surfaces with which he equipped the building.

The entrance is designed in neo-baroque style and thus forms a contrasting transition from the Mughal-Moorish facade to the rather sober Victorian interior of the building. In the entrance area there are four frescos by the Maltese painter Giuseppe Calì (1846–1930), which, based on Antonio Vivaldi's Four Seasons , depict the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Mary Attard: Is Calì turning in his grave? The Times of Malta , September 4, 2009, accessed May 21, 2020 .
  2. ↑ a b Derek Moss: Sliema's Built Heritage. Flimkien għal Ambjent Aħjar (FAA), November 16, 2017, accessed on May 21, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Helen Caruana Galizia: More on the Alhambra. The Times of Malta, September 5, 2009, accessed May 21, 2020 .

Coordinates: 35 ° 54 '36 "  N , 14 ° 29" 44.1 "  E