Almanzor: Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba (Spain)
Enlargement of Almanzor
At the in of the Xth Century the population of Córdoba grew because of the
arrival of African immigrants. For this reason the Mosque had to be enlarged, avoiding the Southern part due to the presence of the Guadalquivir. With these works, Almanzor (976-1002) - or al-Mansur - wanted to show his power as dictator, but without forgetting the real power of the other caliphs. So he didn’t destroy any ancient part of the Mosque. For this reason, 8 new naves were added to the west side of the building, even the court. The result was al-Hakam it’s copy; they tried to eliminate a lot of decorative elements, creating a plain part of the Mosque, similar to a military building, with a practical sense where the pragmatism and the discipline (typical in Almanzor) were show.
The upright parts of the columns are grey, of different tonality, but uniform. The capitals are of comlex order though in the parallel zone, next to that performed by al-Hakam II, the capitals are Corynth. 
The upper pillars are with rolls modillions in the medium part, and the archs that separate them have stone vaussoirs (dovelas), though with the paint they dissimulate the effect, like in Madinat al-Zahra, the alternance of stones and bricks.
The façade of the oratory towards the court was inspired from the one built by Caliph Abd al-Rahman III, but reducing to the half the thickness of the wall, what provoked that the closer ones to this one were put again. Consequently, in this place you create a double stretch
, narrower with the upper horseshoe pointed arch and in the pit prop five lobes.
This fact, turns this building solution into even more original than the enlargement, the Qibla was built with simplicity with only one wall with its external buttresses. The Almanzor’s imitation was extremely: he copied the external walls coming from the previous qiblas. One of Almanzor’s pragmatism and his respect towards the continuity, was the lack of inscriptions of name the authors of the work. However we know that the person in charge of the work was: Abd Allah Ibn Muhammad.
They only ones conserved are into the oratory where the stonecutter, that were mozarabic, carved their names on the upright part of the columns. 
The link of the old naves with the last enlargement of the Mosque was made through big archs, open in the old oriental façade. They are double horseshoe archs and propped-up with pass of columns with rough bases.
The new oriental façade had seven doors, inspired by al-Hakam II, conserved and restored at the beginning of XXth century by Velázquez Bosco with the help of the sculptor Mateo Inurria Lairrosa (1867-1924).
In the court 4 doors were open; one of them matches with the street where previously existed the oriental façade. The last was the building of a pool; it is a squared pool with nine vaultings spaces.
Text: Jesús Pijuán.
Traslated by Sara Moretti