Leopoldo Torres Balbás (Madrid, May 23, 1888 - Madrid, November 21, 1960)[2]​[3]​ was a restoration architect, prolific writer about Spanish monumental architecture and Spanish archaeologist. Friend of Manuel de Falla, he developed an important part of his activity in the most emblematic buildings of the Spanish city of Granada.

Son of Rafael Torres Campos, he studied at the School of Architecture of Madrid (when he was still on Calle de los Estudios), obtaining the title of architect in 1916. In 1931 by competitive examination he won the chair of History of Plastic Arts and History of Architecture at the same school, succeeding Vicente Lampérez y Romea in that teaching work.

Leopoldo Torres Balbás is remembered today as one of the fathers of monumental restoration in Spain. His fundamental contribution is due both to his theoretical thinking, collected in multiple writings, and to his practice, materialized mainly in his interventions in the Alhambra, the Generalife and the Alcazaba in Malaga. Between 1923 and 1936, a period in which he held the position of Restorative Architect of the 6th Zone, professor of Art at the Madrid School of Architecture and director of recovery works at the Alhambra.

To him we largely owe the Alhambra that we know today. Their rigorous and sensitive work put an end to the tradition of fanciful and destructive restorations of previous decades. Torres Balbás restored the Mexuar, the Patio de los Leones and the Patio de la Alberca, and among other interventions he created the new entrance to the Royal House and restructured the Partal with gardens that were equally inheritors of the Andalusian and classical traditions. In addition to all this, a program to recover the Imperial Palace of Charles V will begin, destined to become a museum.

Some of his interventions in the Alhambra, such as that of the Patio de los Leones, where he dismantled some nineteenth-century domes, were criticized in the city by some sectors that opposed his work. In this case Manuel de Falla had to mediate in the face of criticism. Currently, Torres Balbás is recognized as one of the great architects who have had the privilege of working on the monumental complex of the Alhambra.

On the occasion of the Ibero-American Exhibition of Seville "Ibero-American Exhibition of Seville (1929)") in 1929, he was commissioned to design the provincial pavilion of Granada, and was awarded the gold medal of the Exhibition. The building was destroyed by fire a few years later.