Biblioteca de Catalunya

Biblioteca de Catalunya has occupied the Antic Hospital de la Santa Creu since 1939, a Gothic charitable hospital complex whose first stone was laid in 1401 in the presence of King Martí l'Humà, and which functioned as Catalonia's largest hospital for centuries before medical services relocated to the purpose-built Hospital de Sant Pau in the early 20th century, freeing up the medieval building for the library's use.

The library's main reading room occupies what was once one of the hospital's grand Gothic wards, and it retains the soaring stone arches, ribbed vaulting and sense of scale of its medieval origin almost entirely intact, making it one of the more visually striking working library spaces in Spain — reading under original 15th-century Gothic arches rather than a modern purpose-built ceiling gives the space a genuinely different atmosphere from most national libraries.