Churriguera, Jose Benito (1665-1725) , Spanish architect and sculptor, who created a distinctive style of high baroque art and whose name was applied to the subsequent Churrigueresque movement. Born in Madrid, he studied under his father, an altarpiece maker, and made his early reputation with his winning entry in the design competition for the catafalque (1689) of Queen Maria Luisa of Savoy in the Church of the Encarnacion in Madrid.

As an official architect in Salamanca, Churriguera created his best-known and most influential work, the Retablo (Altar Screen, 1693-1700) of the Church of San Esteban, a towering, ornately carved construction that covers the entire east wall of the church. Richly gilded and decorated with sculpture, its most distinctive elements are its spiraling twisted columns—a motif that was to become the hallmark of the Churrigueresque style.

A more restrained, classical side of his personality is seen in his design for the town of Nuevo Baztán, for a church, a palace, and other buildings, in which he eschewed effusive or overelaborate ornamentation. His younger brothers Joaquin and Alberto carried on the family name, and although their architecture is relatively restrained, the Churrigueresque style (the name was coined as a pejorative term by later critics) came to signify the most elaborate, extravagant flights of baroque fancy in 18th-century Spain and Latin America.