Library of Catalonia

Brief information

The Library of Catalonia occupies the old building of the Hospital de la Santa Creu, and this change of purpose immediately sets the main angle of view: what we see is not a palace library that grew out of a royal collection, but a national library created from scratch under the Institute for Catalan Studies. That is why the building here is important not only as a shell. It shows how an institution that began without a ready-made dynastic collection received a large urban space and became a place for preserving Catalan cultural heritage.

Its present meaning is connected not with a single rare hall or separate collection, but with the task of collecting and preserving Catalan printed, graphic, musical, and periodical memory. The later digitization of the holdings adds a contrast to this: the materials are kept in a historic building, but they are gradually being converted into digital form.

What to notice right away

The source text says almost nothing about the building’s appearance, so it is better to keep the focus on confirmed features of how the place is arranged. It makes sense to compare three details: the old building of the former Hospital de la Santa Creu, the library’s large area, and the composition of its departments. The former hospital explains why the national library is located not in a specially built palace, but in an existing historic volume. The area of 8,820 m² helps convey that the library functions as a major repository, not only as a reading room.

The departments also suggest that more than books are preserved here. Alongside printed publications, the library’s history includes music, prints, engravings, maps, graphic works, a sound archive, and a newspaper and periodicals archive. After that, the word “library” reads more broadly: this place has gathered different carriers of Catalan culture, from pages and maps to sound and newspaper issues.