The team of professionals who carried out the restoration work on the Court of the Lions at the Alhambra have received the Premio Ideal 2013 prize from the Ideal newspaper. The award ceremony held at the cloister in the Hospital Real was presided over by the President of the Regional Government of Andalusia, Susana Díaz, and was attended by representatives of institutions, business and the world of culture and sport.
The Director of the Council of the Alhambra and Generalife, María del Mar Villafranca, ascended the stage in representation of the award-winning team and received the prize from the Editor of the Ideal newspaper, Eduardo Peralta. In her speech she stressed that “heritage also creates employment and provides a boost for the economy. The team that performed the restoration work in the Court of the Lions bears the hallmark of Andalusia: 33 companies worked on this project and most of them were from Granada”.
Villafranca pointed out that doing restoration work “in the very heart of the Alhambra has not been easy. We had to take a number of difficult, sometimes risky decisions. Not only have we restored the Lions and the fountains, we have also recovered the murmur of the water and reopened the courtyard to the public, such that in one year more than 2 million people have been able to enjoy it again”.