José Benito de Churriguera (21 March 1665, in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

– 2 March 1725, in Madrid) was a Spanish architect, sculptor and

urbanist Urbanism is the study of how inhabitants of urban areas, such as towns and cities, interact with the built environment. It is a direct component of disciplines such as urban planning, which is the profession focusing on the physical design and m ...

of the late-

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

Rococo Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...

style. He was born in Madrid to a

Catalan Catalan may refer to: Catalonia From, or related to Catalonia: * Catalan language, a Romance language * Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia Places * 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...

cabinetmaker A cabinet is a case or cupboard with shelves and/or drawers for storing or displaying items. Some cabinets are stand alone while others are built in to a wall or are attached to it like a medicine cabinet. Cabinets are typically made of wood (s ...

, gilder and

altarpiece An altarpiece is an artwork such as a painting, sculpture or relief representing a religious subject made for placing at the back of or behind the altar of a Christian church. Though most commonly used for a single work of art such as a painting o ...

joiner A joiner is an artisan and tradesperson who builds things by joining pieces of wood, particularly lighter and more ornamental work than that done by a carpenter, including furniture and the "fittings" of a house, ship, etc. Joiners may work in ...

, Josep Simó Xoriguera i Elies and to doña Maria de Ocaña, and studied under his father along with two of his brothers. His excessively decorated style, which can be described as an obsessively over-wrought '' horror vacui'' on any surface or facade, led to the adjective

churrigueresque Churrigueresque (; Spanish: ''Churrigueresco''), also but less commonly "Ultra Baroque", refers to a Spanish Baroque style of elaborate sculptural architectural ornament which emerged as a manner of stucco decoration in Spain in the late 17th c ...

. He and his two brothers Joaquin (1674–1724) and

Alberto Alberto is the Romance languages, Romance version of the Latinized form (''Albertus'') of Germanic languages, Germanic ''Albert (given name), Albert''. It is used in Italian language, Italian, Portuguese language, Portuguese and Spanish language, ...

(1676–1750) were recognized as the leading

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

s of their time.

Works

His works include or are found in the following: * The altarpiece in the church for Convent of San Esteban in

Salamanca Salamanca () is a city in western Spain and is the capital of the Province of Salamanca in the autonomous community of Castile and León. The city lies on several rolling hills by the Tormes River. Its Old City was declared a UNESCO World Heritag ...

* In the

New Cathedral of Salamanca The New Cathedral ( es, Catedral Nueva) is, together with the Old Cathedral, Salamanca, Old Cathedral, one of the two cathedrals of Salamanca, Spain. It was constructed between the 16th and 18th centuries in two styles: late Gothic architecture, ...

. * The church of

Saint Sebastian Saint Sebastian (in Latin: ''Sebastianus''; Narbo, Gallia Narbonensis, Roman Empire c. AD 255 – Rome, Italia, Roman Empire c. AD 288) was an early Christian saint and martyr. According to traditional belief, he was killed during the Dioclet ...

* The church of San Cayetano in Madrid. * The church of Saint Thomas in Madrid. * The Goyeneche Palace in Madrid. * The Goyeneche Palace, church and garden in the factory town of

Nuevo Baztán Nuevo Baztán is a municipality southeast of Madrid, near Alcalá de Henares, Spain. It consists of a small historic centre and modern housing estates. The historic centre was designed as an industrial and housing complex laid out on a grid p ...

, near

Alcalá de Henares Alcalá de Henares () is a Spanish city in the Community of Madrid. Straddling the Henares River, it is located to the northeast of the centre of Madrid. , it has a population of 193,751, making it the region's third-most populated Municipalities ...

. * The chapel of the Sacristy (Sagrario) in the Cathedral of Segovia. * The altarpiece of the ''Transit of the Virgin'' in the cathedral in

Palencia Palencia () is a city of Spain located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is the capital and most populated municipality of the province of Palencia. Located in the Northwest of the Iberian Peninsula, in the northern half o ...

External links

Scholarly articles
in English about José Benito de Churriguera to both in web an
PDF
@ th
Spanish Old Masters Gallery

References

* ''

Bernard Bevan Bernard (''Bernhard'') is a French and West Germanic masculine given name. It is also a surname. The name is attested from at least the 9th century. West Germanic ''Bernhard'' is composed from the two elements ''bern'' "bear" and ''hard'' "brav ...

'', Historia de la Arquitectura Española, Ed. Juventud S.A., 1970, {{DEFAULTSORT:Churriguera, Jose Churriguera, Jose Benito de Churriguera, Jose Benito de Churriguera, Jose Benito de Churriguera, Jose Benito de Rococo architects