The Alhambra presents a biography of Torres Balbás, the curator of the Monument between 1923 and 1936

Leopoldo Torres Balbás, the architect, (1880-1960) “will return” once more to the Alhambra in 2013. The director-general of the Patronato of the Monumental Complex, María del Mar Villafranca, has this morning announced that next year “a worthy tribute” will be paid to “one of the most brilliant personalities of contemporary history”. There will be a succession of events centred on him and his work, including a wide range of activities: exhibitions, publications, seminars and a series of lectures. 
Villafranca has admitted that “the Alhambra owes a great deal to Torres Balbás”. She also recalled that next March will be the 90th anniversary of the arrival of the architect at the Monument, and “any excuse is valid to remember him”.
The first of the activities has been presented this morning in the Palace of Charles V: a biography, written by the doctor and architect Julián Esteban Chapapría, called Leopoldo Torres Balbás: a long trip with the Alhambra in my heart. This is published by Pentagraf, together with the Patronato de la Alhambra y Generalife. It is a careful study of the professional facet of the architect which will allow us to make a closer approach to “the architect, lecturer, research worker into Islamic art and member of the Royal Academy of History… To a master and a man who was definitely a survivor of his time. This book will reveal many previously unknown secrets about Torres Balbás” according to Villafranca.  
The book has an important photographic material loaned by the archives of the Patronato de la Alhambra y Generalife; in 2010 they obtained the intellectual legacy of Leopoldo Torres Balbás, and it is the first time that this has been published since this material has become available to research workers”.
According to Julián Esteban Chapapría it is “a critical biography, explaining the aesthetics and intellectual interests of his time. Leopoldo Torres Balbás was a man closely linked with the Institución Libre de Enseñanza, something that influences his formation and his social commitment”.