Alcázar, alcazaba, mezquita, seu, lonja, mirador: Spanish heritage words explained

The short answer

These words name kinds of building, and many Spanish monuments carry one as part of their name. The Institut d'Estudis Catalans dictionary, which defines the Catalan forms, gives the core meanings.[1]

• Alcázar (Catalan alcàsser): a fortified building that served as the residence of a king or prince.[1]
• Alcazaba (alcassaba): a fortified enclosure inside a walled town, to shelter the inhabitants and the army.[1]
• Mezquita (mesquita): a building where the Muslim community gathers, above all for prayer.[1]
• Seu: the seat of a power or authority, especially a bishop's, and also a cathedral church.[1]
• Lonja (llotja): among other senses, a public place where merchants meet to do business.[1]
• Mirador: a place in a building from which you can look into the distance.[1]

What the word does not do is identify a place. The alcázars and alcazabas named below are each run by a different body, and their own pages show how far apart same-named buildings can be.

The Real Academia Española's Castilian definitions are not quoted here, because XTOUR has not verified them.

Alcázar: a fortress that was also a residence

The Alcázar of Segovia's own history explains the word through its first records. Between 1124 and 1139, it says, documents begin to call the building "castillo de Segovia" and "Alcaçar", a term that alludes to its condition as both fortress and royal residence.[2] That double meaning is the dictionary's too.[1]

Two buildings called Alcázar show how differently the word has aged.

Seville. The Real Alcázar's history begins with the Dar al-Imara, a new seat of government that Caliph Abd al-Rahman III ordered in 913, and says the Castilian conquest of 1248-49 gave the complex the status it keeps today: seat of the Crown and of the city's municipal power.[3] Its institutional page lists a governing council whose president, by statute, is the Mayor of Seville, and an official still titled Alcaide.[4] The royal use is not only history. Patrimonio Nacional says the Cuarto Alto, the palace's upper apartments, has been and still is the official residence of the King and Queen of Spain when they visit Seville; its use is assigned to Patrimonio Nacional, while visits to it are managed by the Alcázar's Patronato.[5] For the visit itself, see the Real Alcázar or the cathedral.

Segovia. The Alcázar of Segovia's site describes a different afterlife: the Royal College of Artillery from 1764 until a fire on 6 March 1862 destroyed its roofs and interior, the Archivo General Militar on the first floor since 1898, and a Patronato created by a decree of 18 January 1951 whose mission includes a public "Museo del Alcázar de Segovia".[2] Segovia is not in Madrid, and XTOUR does not treat it as part of the Madrid destination.

The two are separate monuments with separate operators and separate histories. A search for "the Alcázar" can return either.

Alcazaba: a fortified enclosure, sometimes with a palace inside

Málaga's Alcazaba explains its name directly: al-Qasba, its history page says, "comes to mean urban fortress". The same page describes a building that changed role, first a fortification, then a palace-fortress and seat of the city's government, and under the Nasrid rulers "two fortresses, one inside the other".[6] A protected walled path, the Coracha, linked it to the Castillo de Gibralfaro on the hill above.[7]

Granada's is different in kind. The Patronato de la Alhambra y Generalife says its entrance shows it was a military enclosure, but that, unlike the open Plaza de Armas of a typical medieval fortress, the Alhambra's Alcazaba was an enclosure within a larger one: a residential area for the elite garrison serving the Sultan, watching over the palatine city, laid out like a small town with houses for the guard.[8] Málaga's own page draws the link: its dungeons, it says, are identical to those of the Alcazaba of the Alhambra, though smaller.[7]

Mérida has a third. The Consorcio that runs Mérida's monuments says an inscription over the main gate dates its alcazaba to 835, built first to protect Muslim rulers from revolts by the city's population and to command the bridge over the Guadiana.[10]

XTOUR's reading of the three pages is that the dictionary's "fortified enclosure" fits all of them, while the palace inside is a matter of each site's history. In Granada, "the Alcazaba" is one part of the Alhambra; in Málaga it is a monument in its own right. See the Alhambra's tickets and timed entry for how the Patronato sells the Alcazaba as part of a visit.

Mezquita, and the mezquita aljama

The Córdoba cathedral chapter's site turns the Castilian Mezquita-Catedral into Mosque-Cathedral in English, and the IEC dictionary defines the Catalan mesquita as a building for Muslim gathering and prayer.[1][11] The form that matters on heritage signs is "mezquita aljama". Málaga's Alcazaba history uses it for the mosque ordered inside the fortress in the 8th century, "mezquita aljama o de los viernes", which served the city until a new great mosque was built in the 9th century.[6] Seville's Real Alcázar places its city's mezquita aljama at today's Colegiata del Salvador.[3]

In Córdoba the word survives in the building's own name. The cathedral chapter's English site calls it the Mosque-Cathedral Monumental Site and the mosque begun by Abd al-Rahman I the "Aljama Mosque".[11] What the building is today, and how it is run, are covered in the Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba: one building, two histories.

Seu: a bishop's seat, and the cathedral

Seu is a Catalan word, and the IEC dictionary gives it two related meanings: the seat of an authority, especially a bishop's, and a cathedral church, with the example "la seu de Barcelona".[1] Barcelona Cathedral's own website, which calls the building the Catedral Basílica Metropolitana de Barcelona, uses the word that way, inviting readers to get to know "our Seu", and gives its address as Pla de la Seu.[12]

The dictionary also lists seu as the seat or headquarters of an organisation.[1] XTOUR's reading is that context decides: on a heritage sign in a Catalan-speaking city, La Seu is the cathedral. XTOUR has not verified how Palma's cathedral names itself on its own website, so this article does not describe it.

Lonja (llotja): a merchants' exchange

The IEC entry for llotja has three senses: a box in a theatre, an open-sided part of a building with pillars or columns, and a public place where merchants meet to trade.[1] Heritage lonjas are the third kind.

Valencia's Lonja de la Seda, the Silk Exchange, is one example. The Comunitat Valenciana tourism site describes it as Valencian Gothic architecture, built in the late 15th century as the centre of the city's silk trade, with a Sala de Contratación (the trading hall), a central tower holding a chapel and a prison for merchants who could not pay, and the hall of the Consulado del Mar; it says UNESCO listed the building in 1996.[13]

Mirador: a place to look out from

The dictionary's mirador is a place in a building from which you can look into the distance.[1] The Alhambra has a clear example. The Patronato explains that the Mirador de Lindaraja, also written Daraxa, takes its name from the Arabic al-'Ayn Dar Aisa, "the eyes of the house of Aisa"; in Nasrid times it was a lookout open to the landscape, with windows set very low so that people seated on the floor could see out.[9]

XTOUR has no verified source for Granada's open-air viewpoints that also carry the name, so it does not describe them.

What the words do not tell you

A shared word is not a shared operator, ticket or place. Seville's Real Alcázar is run by a Patronato whose governing council is presided over by the city's mayor, with its upper apartments assigned to Patrimonio Nacional, while Segovia's Alcázar is run by its own Patronato.[2][5][4] The Alhambra's Alcazaba is part of a monument run by the Patronato de la Alhambra y Generalife, and Málaga's is presented on the City of Málaga's own monument website.[6][8]

XTOUR does not state opening times, prices or entry rules for any building named here. For the cities, see Seville, Granada, Córdoba, Málaga, Barcelona and Valencia, or the Spain country page.