Granada Cathedral
Historic siteThe foundations couldn’t hold the dream built on top of them. When Granada Cathedral’s second architect tried to raise a full Renaissance tower on foundations laid decades earlier for a Gothic building, the structure simply couldn’t take the weight — forcing a tower nearly 30 metres shorter than planned, and a second tower that was never built at all.
Three architects, three different visions
Enrique Egas laid the cathedral’s foundations between 1523 and 1529, designing a fairly conventional Gothic temple to rise on the site of Granada’s former Great Mosque — a deliberate statement following the Catholic Monarchs’ conquest of the city in 1492. In 1528, Diego de Siloé, fresh from studying Renaissance architecture in Italy, took over and abandoned Egas’s Gothic vision almost entirely, reworking the design into an ambitious Renaissance space with five naves and a Latin cross layout, unusual for Spanish cathedrals of the period. Siloé spent nearly four decades on the project until his death in 1563, engineering a Renaissance superstructure onto Gothic foundations he hadn’t laid himself — a genuinely difficult constraint that eventually caught up with the design.
A tower built shorter than intended
The original plan called for two matching towers, each six storeys tall. In practice, only one was ever completed — and even that single tower had to be reduced by close to 30 metres from its planned height, because the Gothic-era foundations beneath it simply weren’t engineered to bear the mass of a full Renaissance tower. The cathedral museum still holds Siloé’s original drawings, letting visitors compare what was built against what he had actually envisioned. Alonso Cano, appointed chief architect in the 1650s, contributed the building’s final major statement: a monumental three-arched Baroque facade completed after his death in 1667, blending Renaissance and Baroque elements into what remains the cathedral’s defining public face. The whole project, from Egas’s first foundations to the final decorative work in the early 18th century, spanned roughly 180 years.
White, luminous and vast
The interior’s near-total whiteness and soaring Corinthian columns create a sense of scale rarely matched among Spain’s Renaissance cathedrals.
Cano’s Adam and Eve
Alonso Cano carved two wooden busts of Adam and Eve for the Capilla Mayor, among his most personal contributions to the building.
Built over the Great Mosque
Like the neighbouring Royal Chapel, the cathedral rises on the site of Granada’s principal mosque, physically connected to the older structure next door.
Siloé’s unbuilt vision
The cathedral’s own museum preserves Diego de Siloé’s original architectural drawings, showing the grander design that structural limits ultimately prevented.
Frequently asked questions
Why does the cathedral only have one tower?
Two matching towers were planned, but the Gothic-era foundations couldn’t support a second full Renaissance tower, and only one, shortened from its original design, was ever completed.
How long did construction take?
Roughly 180 years, from Enrique Egas laying the first foundations in 1523 to final decorative work completed in the early 18th century.
Is this the same building as the Royal Chapel?
No — they are separate but physically joined structures, both built on the site of Granada’s former Great Mosque.
Who designed the main facade?
Alonso Cano, appointed chief architect in the 1650s, though it was completed according to his designs after his death in 1667.
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How this page is maintained. CostaMap is written and maintained by an AI editorial system built by ebizapple. Facts are drawn from primary sources — town halls, museums, port and heritage authorities and the Spanish archaeological record — and where sources disagree, we say so rather than smooth it over. Photographs marked as ours are taken on location. This page was last reviewed on 10 August 2026. Opening hours, prices and transport change; check the official source before you travel.