Imperial Spain

With the conquest of Granada and the voyages to the Americas, Spain became a world empire. Its architecture went from rich ornament to the severity of the Escorial and back to the splendour of the late Baroque.

The early Spanish Renaissance is called Plateresque, with ornament as fine as silverwork, as on the façade of the university in Salamanca. Philip II’s El Escorial, built in 1563–1584 by Juan Bautista de Toledo and Juan de Herrera, is monastery, palace and royal mausoleum in one, almost without decoration.

In the 18th century Santiago Cathedral received its Baroque façade, the Obradoiro, and the exuberant late Baroque is called Churrigueresque after the Churriguera family of architects. The style also spread to the churches of Latin America.

• El Escorial