No, don't imagine the monarchs of the so-called Mallorcan dynasty – James II, Sancho I, and James III – strolling through that medieval King's Garden in Palma, because it's unlikely, as they were hardly ever in Mallorca. They preferred to stay in their continental domains, in Perpignan. What James II did, in 1303, was to arrange for the diversion of the Riera river, which occasionally overflowed. That, as Pascual and Llabrés observe, was a benefit for the city, but also – oh, what a coincidence – for himself, since the Garden bordered the torrent, which could damage his gardens. In any case, with that lack of urgency that characterizes the Majorcans, that diversion was not put into practice until 1613.The rest of the monarchs up to the present day have hardly set foot in the Almudaina or its gardens. More than three centuries passed without any visits from them. The mythical Prince Charles of Viana, in 1459, had to settle there because he was denied Bellver Castle. Elizabeth II, Alfonso XII, and Alfonso XIII made brief stays there, and Juan Carlos I and Philip VI, as is known, have had other gardens, those of Marivent, for a stroll.
The King's Garden: the hidden history behind Palma's most emblematic gardens
60 years ago of the project by Gabriel Alomar Esteve that recovered this space of Palma as a green area
PalmaWhat are gardens that seem so much taken from Granada in the very heart of Palma, at the foot of the Almudaina and a few steps from the Born and the sea? And even more so when the elderly people of Ciutat still remember that right here, in Hort del Rei, there were the Líric theatre, the Alhambra hotel, the mythical Riskal café... The truth, however, is that with the demolition of those buildings, what had already been a green area in the Middle Ages was recovered, only this time it was not done for the enjoyment of a monarch, but for the entire citizenry – and tourists, of course. We recall the history of Hort del Rei as sixty years have passed since the project that the architect Gabriel Alomar Esteve made in 1966 and which envisaged the recovery of that space.
We do not know exactly when the original King's Garden, which was part of the royal palace complex, the Almudaina, would date from. As Aina Pasqual and Jaume Llabrés point out, it comprised two garden areas: the King's Garden, outside the walls, and the King's Meadow, inside. The latter is the only garden from the past that has survived to this day, although a part of it has been lost to make way for a car park.
It is recorded that, at the beginning of the 14th century, the King's Garden had orange trees, lemon trees, plum trees, laurel trees, and cypress trees, and onions, cabbages, spinach, parsley, radishes, lettuces, and chard were cultivated there. Certainly, it was more of a vegetable garden than a pleasure garden. In 1309, a slave, Ahmed, brought vines to plant grapes there, which is a paradox, since, as is known, Muslims are forbidden to drink wine, and this one, by its name, must have been.
In the gardens of the Almudaina, not only plant species lived, but also animals. From 1338 there are records of bears, wolves, and monkeys. The breeding of rabbits, white and black, is also recorded, some of which were used as gifts to maintain good relations with the King of Tunis. In 1381, the jurats, equivalent to the current councilors of Palma or advisors of Mallorca, raised the alarm because the water from the Font de la Vila was not reaching the King's Garden, which could mean that the trees and plants in the garden would die of thirst.
What was that original King's Garden like? It had a rectangular shape, more or less like today, along the western facade of the Almudaina, enclosed by a wall, with a fountain in the center and a pool that, on the south side, served as its boundary and separated it from the shipyard, the arch of which, incidentally, has suffered serious deterioration in recent times, as denounced a few days ago by the conservation organization ARCA.
Cinemas, a theater, a hotel, and a cafe
This aspect seems to have changed little over five centuries. An anonymous painting from 1647 shows that garden, divided into parterres. In 1834 the wall was replaced by a wooden fence, and this by another of iron, in 1882. Archduke Ludwig Salvator recorded the King's Garden as it was around that same time, with trees, lampposts, and a balustrade. He noted how "it has been leased to an entrepreneur for several years to build a circus there," which must have been shocking to the environmentalist aristocrat. It was the Teatre Circ Balear, which only lasted about twenty years.
The decisive intervention in what had been the royal gardens was carried out by the multifaceted entrepreneur Josep Tous Ferrer, who in 1900 obtained the cession of those plots and there he erected the first cinema in the history of the Balearic Islands, the Cinematògraf Balear, as well as the Teatre Líric and the Alhambra hotel with the café of the same name, later renamed Riskal. In 1903 a second cinema opened there, the Cinematògraf Truyol, created by the photographer Josep Truyol, who had his studio in the same area. However, it was the Líric that would end up absorbing the film screenings.
That set of premises –theatre, hotel, and cafe– played a relevant role in the social life of Ciutat for six decades. It was, as José Carlos Llop defines it, “the vanguard of an impossible bourgeois city”. El Riskal became a sanctuary for the discussions of Llorenç Villalonga, attended by personalities of Mallorca of the time as notable as Camilo José Cela, Jaume Vidal Alcover, Llorenç Moyà, Joan Bonet, and Guillem Frontera, and someone passing through, like the journalist and writer César González Ruano.
According to Luis Fábregas, in the place that had been l’Hort del Rei, the Gomila garage, the Cercle de Belles Arts, and shops and offices such as Bartomeu Pomar’s La Marina jewelry store, a pastry shop, and the offices of the Tayá Steam Company and the Schembri agency were also installed. In the Riskal building, the ophthalmologist Comas, who must have been an authority, had his practice. At one of the ends, the cavalry barracks was located, ugly as sin, but from which the knights of the Creu de Sant Jaume, with their elegant uniforms, would come out for a ride, to the admiration of the onlookers.
However, that was a concession, and sooner or later it had to revert to the city. As early as 1936, ninety years ago, the Palma City Council organized an exhibition of proposals for the entire facade of the wall. Around the 1940s, the person who was to be an essential figure in the return of the Hort del Rei to its original functions appeared: the architect Gabriel Alomar i Esteve (1910-1997), nephew of the politician and writer of the same name and first lineage.
The gardens are gardens again
The architect Alomar was the author of the 1943 General Plan, of which probably his most notable intervention would be the opening of the current Jaume III avenue. That plan, the majority of which was never carried out, already provided for a green area – Alomar was an advocate of these spaces for public recreation – where the Líric, the Alhambra, and the Riskal still stood.
But, as we are in Mallorca, we take these things with the secular island calm. It wasn't until 23 years later, in 1966, sixty years ago now, that Alomar drafted the project for the new Hort. That same year, 1966, the pickaxe went through the cavalry barracks, the land of which had already been ceded by the state government to the Palma City Council. And in the following years, the theater, hotel, and cafe fell to the ground, without anyone raising any protest, which would not have been very advisable either, during the Franco dictatorship. Of course, it was a cause of a certain nostalgic sadness among those who had known its times of splendor.
For the recovered Hort del Rei, the architect was inspired by a recreation of what the old royal palace of Gaietà Socias, from 1852, must have been like, and by the Andalusian-style gardens of Granada and Seville. This was no extravagance, as the garden corresponding to the times of Islamic rule probably would not have looked very different: from that period, two marble lions have survived to our days, which must have served as decorative elements for the garden.
The gardening specialist Francisco Prieto-Moreno signed the project with Gabriel Alomar, while Antoni Alomar, the architect's son, was in charge of the direction of the works. Neither of the two designers charged a penny, while the intervention amounted to twenty-five million pesetas, about 150,000 current euros. The inauguration took place on May 27, 1970.
The current Hort del Rei integrates three successive areas: at the entrance, arriving from El Born, there are water channels with coats of arms, very much in keeping with Alomar's passion for the Middle Ages. Here is Nancy, the mobile that the sculptor Alexander Calder, a good friend of Joan Miró, gave to the City in 1973. However, the City Council, still Francoist of course, did not show much interest in accepting it. It was not until 1994, after suffering an assault and spending several years in municipal warehouses awaiting its restoration, that it was located in its current site.
The central part of the Hort del Rei, which certainly strongly recalls the Arab gardens of Granada, is closed by the sculpture Jònica, by Josep Maria Subirachs, from 1983, with verses by Cavafy inscribed. While in the area bordering the arsenal arch, by the pond that was previously populated by a pair of swans, there has been, since 1970, the Foner in bronze by Llorenç Roselló. It is a piece that also had its vicissitudes, because it lost its sling and years passed until it was recovered, also in 1994.
Anselm Turmeda, around 1398, sang the excellences of that Hort del Rei that he must have known in person, with "fruit trees of all kinds", "flowers that blossomed again", "white and red roses and other beautiful flowers" and "apples of love and myrtles". That paradise, with the passage of time, would give way to meeting places that, at the time, became legendary. This, to then return, as if moved by the wheel of time, to the starting point: these temporary gardens that are the Hort del Rei, now inhabited, above all, by tourists.