Juan de Villanueva is the most important architect and the greatest champion of the neoclassical style from the second half of the 18th century in Spain.
Educated at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, in Madrid, he managed to obtain a scholarship to Rome in 1758, where he spent seven years studying architecture and models of antiquity. After his return to Spain he was appointed as an academic of merit and in 1777 as architect to the Prince of Asturias. His style owes much to the El Escorial austerity of Juan de Herrera and to the preponderance of a severe language of studied proportions.
 

Juan de Villanueva served the crown during the reigns of Carlos III and Carlos IV. He constructed the Museo del Prado, the Observatorio in Madrid and the Casitas del Escorial. He was also responsible for the decoration of the house of the Duke of Alba during the celebration of 1789.

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