2023-08-21 16:32:01
Garcia Marquez, in the heart of the Barcelona district of Sant Martí, it is already the Best Public Library in the world of 2023. The spectacular architectural structure, which evokes a gigantic stack of books, and its open-plan, bright, comfortable and sustainable conception, of Nordic design in light wood and glass, have been deserving this Monday of the prize awarded by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), which has delivered its verdict in Rotterdam (Holland), within the framework of the 88th World Library and Information Congress.
With this award, awarded with 5,000 dollars, the García Márquez thus becomes the first Spanish public library to win the award of the IFLA. The work of the architects Elena Orte and Guillermo Sevillano, from SUMA Arquitectura, and inaugurated in May 2022, it has imposed itself on the three other finalists la Public Library Janez Vajkard Valvasor Krškov (Slovenia), la City of Parramatta Library (Australia) and la Shangai Library East (China).
Gabriel Garcia Marquez bibliothèca from Barcelona is announced the winner of Systematic / IFLA #library of the year for 2023 #WLIC2023
— IFLA PLS (@IFLA_PLS) August 21, 2023
Located on the corner of Calle del Treball and Concilio de Trento, the García Márquez Library, already won last year the Award City of Barcelona of architecture and opt for a new award, as it has been selected finalist of the FAD Awards for Architecture and Interior Designwhich will be released on October 19.
Almost a thousand daily visits
La García Márquez, a newly built building with six floors and almost 4,000 square meters, with a collection of 40,000 books and documentshad received, from June 2022, shortly after its inauguration, until last May, 277,578 visits (an average of 947 people per day), had lent 128,695 documents, created 6,000 cards for new users and hosted 75 activities (conferences, meetings with writers, poetry recitals, reading clubs, workshops…).
Most valued criteria
Conceived as a multifunctional cultural and proximity facility for residents, the center brings together the criteria most valued by the IFLA jury, such as the interaction with the social environment and local culture, the combination of open and functional architecture with creative and sustainable solutions, the flexibility of spaces and services or digitization.
With multiple and diverse reading and work spaces, as well as areas with computers, a couple of outdoor terraces, the different sections of the library are transported, totally open, with hardly any doors, around a triangular interior patio through which the a wide staircase that receives natural light from a large skylight on the deck.
The materials are recyclable (the wood comes from controlled reforestation) and the project seeks energy efficiency, with the use of photovoltaic panels or the reuse of rainwater to irrigate the vegetation.
The Latin American ‘boom’
Already with the same name, the library pays homage to the Colombian Nobel Prize winner for Literature Gabriel García Márquez, closely linked to Barcelona, whom he remembers with a bronze bust and with his works, in addition to those of the other protagonists of the so-called ‘boom’ of Latin American literature, in which the center has specialized, which lived in the city in the 60s and 70s.
Francisco Ibanez Fund
In addition to this specialization, the Barcelona library (the third largest of the 40 in the city, after Jaume Fuster and Ignasi Iglésias-Can Fabra) has a space dedicated to cartoonist Francisco Ibáñez, who died last July, since the creator de Mortadelo y Filemón was a neighbor of Sant Martí.
In addition to hosting the KM America Latin American Literature Festivalthe García Márquez hosts the first platform open to the Barcelona library network through podcasts, called Radio Maconda (wink to the fictitious town created by the Colombian Nobel).
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