Out & About: Gabriel García Márquez Library in Barcelona

Lecture and Guided Tour of the Gabriel García Márquez Library in Barcelona. The lecture will discuss details about the research project, design and construction of the library as a prelude to the guided tours.

Gabriel García Márquez Library by SUMA Arquitectura

The García Márquez is a pioneering and landmark library that culminates a three-decade plan building these facilities in Barcelona. It serves a working class and
vindictive neighborhood, lacking significant investment for years, that demanded its “people’s palace” ever since and now enjoys the “best new library in the world”,
according to IFLA.
The library’s sculpted form evokes blocks of stacked books with folded pages. It sits on an elevated plaza that allows fluid pedestrian circulation around and cantilevers over the open area, creating an urban lounge that extends the pedestrian and cultural axis of the neighborhood, enclosed by the big existing trees.
The library offers a reinterpretation of the characteristic chamfer of Barcelona’s Eixample to a street cross that is now Plaça Carmen Balcells. The 45º geometry of the chamfer is also that of the north-south axis and crosses the entire library, with triangular courtyard and cores, and an envelope that seeks indirect light in its facades and skylights, avoids frontal views of the police station and looks at the street trees.
The facility has 4,294 m2 distributed over 5 floors around three vertical cores and a central triangular atrium with zenithal lighting.

Guided tour: 15 May / 10:00 CET

Meeting point:
Plaça de Carmen Balcells
Segalà, 1
Barcelona

◾In collaboration with Elena Orte & Guillermo Sevillano (SUMA Arquitectura); Ferran Burguillos y Neus Castellano (Biblioteques de Barcelona); Guiding Architects Barcelona

Language: Lecture (Spanish) & Guided tour (English & Spanish)

Register here: https://www.eventbrite.es/e/outabout-eumies-awards-gabriel-garcia-marquez-library-tickets-871684581047?aff=oddtdtcreator

Out & About 2024

“Out & About. Discovering Architecture. EUmies Awards 2024” will take place from April onwards in over 30 European places in which shortlisted works of the prize are located. Organised by Creative Europe, Fundació Mies van der Rohe and the indisputable expertise of Guiding Architects, everybody has the opportunity to know much more about buildings and public spaces in their cities or in places that they are visiting with the authors, clients and people who know them well.