Historic Malaga fortress to stay open later and offer night tours once new lighting is installed

The Alcazaba-Gibralfaro complex is Malaga city's star monument. It is the most visited and most photographed landmark, ranking even above the Picasso Museum.

However, there is concern over its worrying state of conservation and the lack of systematic action to prevent its deterioration beyond urgent interventions. Now the famous masterplan that has been talked about for decades appears to be nearing completion, albeit with a different name to avoid being linked to the long period of inactivity in this emblematic site of historic importance (BIC).

It is now called the integral conservation and rehabilitation plan, which has been in the pipeline for two years. Speaking this week the city's councillors for urban planning, Carmen Casero and for culture, Mariana Pineda, said that the draft project will be complete "in a few weeks". It will then be ready to submit to the Junta de Andalucía regional government.

The councillors also took the opportunity to talk about other aspects of interest, such as a "visitors' roof" in the fortress to protect it and the project for new lighting, which has already been presented to the regional government and is awaiting the go-ahead to be put out to tender. The project will enable the opening hours to be extended and night visits to start from 2026 onwards.

"A year ago we thought it would be interesting to start a project to light the interior of the Alcazaba, which will allow better visualisation and preventive conservation and allow the Alcazaba to be open at night," explained Pineda. The monument does open at night for special occasions, like the city's annual 'Noche en Blanco' when cultural centres are open until late. The project for the new lighting has already been submitted to the Junta de Andalucía and is awaiting approval.

For this reason, the councillor for culture has said that "in the next few weeks we will have the definitive go-ahead to proceed with the tender for the lighting". While awaiting the green light, Pineda has given herself a period of one year to complete the whole administrative and installation process, so she hopes that the nighttime tours will be able to start in 2026.

Carmen Casero detailed the urgent actions that cannot wait due to the deterioration of the walls or the effect of the heavy rainfall of last autumn-winter and explained that, in the last two years, "if you add up all the archaeological projects and interventions that we have carried out, they total almost 25, so we are working constantly", she said, adding that any urgent problems that arise are dealt with immediately. "The activity does not stop," she added.

Among the proposals of the conservation plan, the Alcazaba-Gibralfaro will have "for the first time with a nomenclature of all the walls and towers, which did not exist until now," revealed the urban planning councillor, who added that the entire monumental complex has also been scanned to create a geo-referenced 3D model. "This digital replica has allowed us to access areas that we had not had access to physically, so we have additional essential information," she said.

To coordinate this new plan, the councillor for culture announced that two new positions have been approved in her department for an architect and a conservationist, who will be in charge of guaranteeing the work and acting as a bridge between her area and the urban planning department with the aim of speeding up the work.

Mariana Pineda also discussed the number of visitors to the Alcazaba-Gibralfaro complex which, in the first half of the year, reached almost 1.2 million visitors, although with a drop of 40,000. The councillor blamed this drop on the past few weeks and a general decline in the number of visitors which other cultural centres and museums have also experienced, although she pointed out that the figures are balancing out this summer and, at the fair, the number of visitors has been slightly higher than in 2024.

The councillor for culture also considered the wear and tear caused by having the monument open to the public at an already deteriorated medieval fortress, which is why sustainability is a priority. She explained that, following in the footsteps of Málaga Procultura - which manages the Cervantes theatre and the Malaga Festival - her department has undertaken a "public study" of exhibition spaces, libraries and the Alcazaba-Gibralfaro complex "to analyse reduction policies and the establishment of a visitor ceiling for its conservation".