Keep

Asilah [Arzila], North Africa, Marocco

Military Architecture

Near the Stream Gate was the most emblematic symbol of the Portuguese presence: the Keep. It was the first construction of the Boytac period, built between 1509 and 1510, in a project that perpetuated the following characteristics: a rectangular prism with a solid cavetto at ground floor level and openings on the two upper floors; finished at the top with battlements and merlons on a balcony interrupted by machicolations on the sides and semi-circular watchtowers on the corners; an inclined tiled roof of two main slopes on the wider sides of the rectangle. The interior included a prison on the windowless ground floor, a guard room on the first floor, and above this the governor’s audience chamber from which he communicated royal orders through an ornate window to the population gathered in the courtyard. The Keep of Asilah dating from the 16th century was designed for royal ostentation during the period following the siege of 1508 when vengeance was more theoretical than actual.
In the 1980s the keep was almost ruined. The restoration work carried out by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, comprised the reconstruction of the top floor and of the roof. The works were concluded in 1994.

• Jorge Correia