Alhambra, Sala de la Barca

The shape of the ceiling of the Sala de la Barca is essentially cylindrical, with quarter spheres capping each end. Consequently the basically planar pattern has to be greatly modified where it covers the spherical surfaces at each end. The colours on the painted wooden ceiling are black, white, silver, brown and orange.

• The symmetry group of the tiling is *442 (p4m).
• All the internal angles of the constituent polygons are a multiple of 15°.
• Contains one regular 8-pointed star polygon with vertex angle of 90°.
• Contains one regular 8-pointed star polygon with vertex angle of 45°.
• Contains one regular 12-pointed star polygon with vertex angle of 60°.
• There are 10 non-regular reflective tiles (including one kite and one dart).
• The tiling satisfies the interlace condition and has three finite interlaces and no infinite interlace with non-straight cross-overs.
• The tiling is edge-to-edge.
• As drawn, contains about 355 polygons.

1. 9156L (Alhambra, Sala de la Barca, Spain. Drawing of wall decoration) from [vami]
2. Fig 13.2b from [ww]
3. Photo by David Wade: SPA 1621x (Alhambra, Sala de la Barca, Spain) from [wadei]
4. Plate XLII+ (Alhambra, Sala de la Barca, Spain. Drawn incorrectly without a kink) from [jones]

• Wade photo SPA 1621x
• Wade photo JON 015
• V&A record Drawing of wall decoration...

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