Spanish Baroque Architecture: Styles and Masterpieces

Spanish Baroque Architecture

The Baroque in Spain is essentially a regionalist style that does not follow universal patterns. The Baroque style is one of the most successful and celebrated in Spain. In no other country does it reach such a lush, richly ornamented, and radically distorted form. Unlike Italy and France, where the accumulation of decorative elements is primarily done indoors, in Spain, this ornamentation spills out, invading the facades.

Architectural Structure and Decoration

However, this Baroque dynamism, which is felt intensely in the decorative aspects, does not fully take over the architectural structure. The overall design of the buildings differs little from the Renaissance, and the movement of Borrominesque floor plans was not adopted in Spain, except in very rare and circumstantial cases.

Master Architects of the Spanish Baroque

Among the greatest creators of Spanish Baroque are José Churriguera, Pedro de Ribera, and Narciso Tomé.

José Churriguera and the Churrigueresque Style

Churriguera belonged to a large family of architects and worked in Madrid and Salamanca. The only confirmed architectural works by José Churriguera are the Palace of Nuevo Baztán—adorned with thick ribs and a low projection highlighted by broad bands—and today's Academy of San Fernando.

An important chapter in his work consists of his altarpieces. Although seen in the Church of San Esteban in Salamanca and other known works, his use of movement is limited to solomonic (spiral) columns of gigantic proportions, previously used by Herrera the Younger.

Pedro de Ribera: Personal and Extreme Style

Pedro de Ribera was a disseminator of the Churrigueresque style, taking it to its personal and imposing extreme. Probably trained under José Churriguera, he conceived facades with a movement and richness hitherto unknown in European architecture. Ribera's masterpiece is considered to be the Hospice of Madrid (now the Museum of History).

In this work, the strong upward momentum typical of the Baroque raises the entire structure by breaking the entablature and cornice of the facade. The central piece, resembling a plume, serves as the cover's crowning element. Capricious skylights pierce the broad spandrels, while the second body features decorative elements with a typical Baroque sensibility. He designed the cover as an altarpiece, with a large curtain framing the sides.

Narciso Tomé and the Transparente of Toledo

If Ribera represents the culmination of mainland Spanish Baroque in terms of decoration, the one who best expresses the Baroque desire for space is the Leonese Narciso Tomé, head of a famous family of architects and decorators. His masterpiece, and one of the jewels of the Baroque, is the Transparente of the Cathedral of Toledo.

This is a huge and rich theatrical altar built with marble and bronze. The perspective is outlined to create an illusion of depth. To enhance this perspective with a violent light effect, Tomé carved out one of the vaults of the ambulatory and placed a huge lantern above it. Here, the sculpture at the top of the altar appears to melt into a painted section of the Gloria.