The project dates back to the dawn of time. Impossible to enumerate the times that the Ministry of Culture has spoken of the construction of the Provincial Library of Barcelona (Public Library of the State, according to current vocabulary, and Central Urban Library, according to municipal jargon;), an investment of the State in Catalonia that has been fallow for some time. The proposal began in 1989, with Minister Jorge Semprúnand it was agreed in a distant 1997 between the central government, the Generalitat and the city council, but despite numerous announcements (and changes of location), the library is still not a reality.
This time it looks like he’s serious. Or at least that’s what Minister Miquel Iceta has assured this Friday during the presentation of the start-up of the project: a new building next to França station (on Avinguda del Marquès de l’Argentera) with an area of 16,168 useful square meters (21,548 total) and a budget of 55 million, which will begin to be built at the end of 2023 and is expected to be finished in 2027.
demolitions in the lot
Meanwhile, this year, on September 14, work will begin to demolish the buildings that occupy the site on which the future facility will be built, work to which 1.4 million euros will be allocated. Another 283,888 euros will be invested in updating the existing project, to adapt it both to the new needs of the library and to the new energy and technological regulations, and also to adjust it to current market prices. Not in vain the project is from 2010, the year in which the joint venture formed by the Barcelona studios Nitidus Arquitectes (with Josep Maria Miró i Gellida at the helm) and Serveis d’Arquitectura Betarq won the competition organized by the ministry.
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Before and after, there have only been problems, delays and forgetfulness. The discovery of the archaeological remains of 1714 in the Born market, made its initial location impossible, later several proposals were considered until arriving at the current one, in 2005. The 2008 crisis put the project in the fridge pending times of greater economic prosperity and the Popular Party was so little interested in the issue that it did not reserve any game for it budget In 2021, three decades later, the Ministry of Culture announced that it was resuming the meetings to discuss the subject, broken in 2014, with the Generalitat and the Barcelona City Council. And this Friday there was a presentation with the presence of the three administrations.
It will be the first state-owned library to be housed in the city and will have flexible and comfortable spaces designed according to criteria of accessibility, adaptability, transparency, sustainability and energy efficiency to serve 1,664,182 potential users and house 600,000 volumes. And it will also be the state public library with the highest investment of those built to date by the Government and the largest, tripling the space of the average size of the rest. It will be built on a plot of land ceded by the city council and, when it becomes a reality, its management will be transferred to the Generalitat.