La Casa del Guadameci´ Umayyad opened its doors to the public in 2006 thanks to the initiative of the artists Ramón García Romero and José Carlos Villarejo García, uncle and nephew, who have dedicated their lives to studying the process of making guadamecí. caliph. This museum located very close to the mosque shows us thetechniques of this skin work for decorative uses that had its time of greatest splendor under the mandate of the Umayyads in the 10th century. These guadamecíes decorated with vegetal and geometric motifs, sometimes also with animals, manufactured in Medina Azahara achieved worldwide fame and they came to adorn numerous palaces in the East and West.
Unfortunately, with the fall of Al-Andalus and the Christian conquest the guadamecí technique Umayyad ended being forgotten due to the loss of the market that demanded them and the abandonment of the country by the best artisans. Some time later, with the Christian kings in power, the object reappeared. in the Córdoba workshopswith the same ornamental function but without the sumptuousness and quality that it had. in his caliphal stage. For this reason, the artists Ramón García Romero and José Carlos Villarejo García, decided to carry out the work of recovering the lost original Muslim techniques of leather brocade.
The Guadamecí Umeya is distributed around five rooms that are organized around the following themes: the guadamecí caliph, the ceramics in the guadamecí, the techniques of the guadamecí, the tools used in the manufacture of the guadamecí and the figure of the guadaméci in the world. The building also has restoration workshops where the artists who run the museum work and a store where they make available to the public a sample of guadamecíes and cordobanes made by them in the same way that a Muslim would have done in this city more than a thousand years ago.
Monday to Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and from 5:00 p.m. :00 to 18:00.
Other nearby places of interest are the Calleja de las Flores, the Dicesano Museum and the Royal Alcázar.