José Grases Riera (25 April 1850 – 12 February 1919) was a Spanish architect from Barcelona. Born in Barcelona, Grases graduated from the School of Architecture in Barcelona in 1878 and moved to Madrid shortly after. Through to the turn of the century he worked on residential projects, and proposed a realignment of the entire city, the ''Proyecto de Gran Vía Norte-Sur'', which was not adapted but influenced the subsequent urban planning in the city. In 1902 Grases won a national design competition for the Monument to Alfonso XII of Spain to be erected in the

Buen Retiro Park The Buen Retiro Park (Spanish: ''Parque del Buen Retiro'', literally "Good retirement park"), Retiro Park or simply El Retiro is one of the largest parks of the city of Madrid, Spain. The park belonged to the Spanish Monarchy until the late 19th ...

. His design was a grand and elaborate curved colonnade, topped with a bronze equestrian statue of the king by sculptor

Mariano Benlliure Mariano Benlliure y Gil (8 September 18629 November 1947) was a Spanish sculptor and medallist, who executed many public monuments and religious sculptures in Spain, working in a heroic realist style. Life and works He was born in the Lower St ...

, and incorporating the work of 21 other artists. The monument was inaugurated on 3 July 1922, after Grases' death. The architect also designed perhaps the most significant example of

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau (; ) is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. The style is known by different names in different languages: in German, in Italian, in Catalan, and also known as the Modern ...

in Madrid, the Palacio Longoria, built in 1903 for financier Javier González Longoria with a surface fabric seemingly sculpted out of cake frosting. (Many sources indicate Grases was influenced by

Antoni Gaudí Antoni Gaudí i Cornet (; ; 25 June 1852 – 10 June 1926) was a Catalan architect from Spain known as the greatest exponent of Catalan Modernism. Gaudí's works have a highly individualized, ''sui generis'' style. Most are located in Bar ...

, but this stylistically dubious, and there's no clear evidence for it.) Other work in Madrid includes the Palacio de la Equitativa, built for the insurance company from 1887 to 1891, with its ornate tower and sculpted elephant heads, and the 1901 monument to Antonio Cánovas del Castillo in the Plaza de la Marina Española, with sculptor Joaquín Bilbao. File:Monumento a Alfonso XII de España en los Jardines del Retiro - 04.jpg, Monument to Alfonso XII of Spain, El Retiro, Madrid File:Palacio Longoria (Madrid) 10.jpg, Palacio Longoria, 1903

Sources

on the Palacio de la Equitativa (in Spanish)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Riera, Jose Grases Architects from Catalonia Art Nouveau architects 1850 births 1919 deaths