Biblioteca de Catalunya

Catalonia's national library inside a 15th-century Gothic hospital in El Raval — stunning reading rooms and regular free exhibitions.

The Biblioteca de Catalunya is Catalonia's national library — the institutional memory of one of Europe's oldest living languages. Founded in 1907, it is housed in the former Hospital de la Santa Creu, a 15th-century Gothic complex in the El Raval neighbourhood of Barcelona. The building is as compelling as the collection: stone arcades, a sunlit courtyard, and magnificent reading rooms where scholars and curious visitors work side by side. Holdings run to millions of documents in Catalan — manuscripts, maps, scores, photographs, and printed works spanning centuries of Catalan and Balearic culture. Regular free exhibitions make the library accessible to all, not just researchers.