Examples of Modernista work in the Alicante region are few in number and can be found in cities like Alicante, Alcoi and Novelda, with mostly Alcoi possessing some of the characteristics that have so far been noted for Modernisme. The city had a stable industrial middle-class that travelled to Catalonia and identified with the style. It had local architects trained in Barcelona who were contemporaneous with Catalan artists and developed in their work details the two main lines of Modernisme: French Art Nouveau inspiration and Austrian Secession sensibility. The city had factories that could produce designed pieces and include them in catalogue series. And it also had quite a few local lithographic printers and periodical publications that contributed to its dissemination.
It is especially in architecture that Modernisme in Alcoi is expressed, but within the concept of integrating the arts it can also be found in a series of materials and objects of high quality and design made from forged and cast iron, stone, marble, wood, hydraulic paving and plasterwork.
Vicente Pascual Pastor and Timoteo Briet Montagud were the main architects who participated in reconstructing the city at the time. During the main period of Modernisme in Alcoi (1906-1910), Vicente Pascual tended to create forms linked to Art Nouveau that were not exempt from historicist, Neo-Rococo and certain Gaudiesque elements and, of course, the influence of Catalan Modernisme. Pascual designed buildings such as the Casa del Pavo or the building where the town's music conservatory is housed today.
The most outstanding works of Timoteo Briet include the project for his home and studio in Carrer Sant Josep 24 and the renovated façade for the Círculo Industrial. Both these works are representative of the Secession movement, in which the architect framed his activity within this period.
In the field of architecture, Modernisme was not exclusively limited to housing for the bourgeoisie, but because of its social and aesthetic value was also expressed in the designs for shop fronts in the town, factory façades, such as the Rodes Hermanos carriage workshop in Carrer Agres, and combined with sculpture in funerary monuments, such as the one built for the Salvador García Botí family, an outstanding example of the work of the Valencian sculptor Eugenio Carbonell.
Modernisme also had a great effect on the graphic arts and was used in the design of packets of cigarette paper, newspaper banners, advertising, posters, festival magazines and commercial catalogues. Moreover, it was considered to be a symbol of progress and modernity.
The important role of local painters such as Fernando Cabrera Cantó, Emilio Sala, Adolfo Morrió, Edmundo Jordá and Francisco Laporta Valor must also be emphasised. Alongside their paintings, they also created excellent work to disseminate Modernisme in the fields of design, engraving and illustration.