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Designed by Josep Maria Miró (Nitidus Arquitectes) and funded by an investment of €82 million, the new facility will be built on approximately 5,000 square metres of municipal land granted next to Estació de França. It will become part of the Ciutadella del Conocimiento ecosystem, a scientific and urban development project that aims to transform Parc de la Ciutadella and its surroundings into a leading European hub for knowledge, culture, outreach, research and innovation.

The library will include reading rooms, information rooms, spaces for accessing general and specialised collections, a children’s and young people’s section, a daily press room, an auditorium, multi-purpose rooms, internet access points, self-service borrowing machines, a relaxation area, an exhibition hall, a café-bookshop and parking facilities.

The construction is expected to take around 60 months, making this the Ministry of Culture’s most ambitious project in recent decades.

The library will perform all the roles of a state public library while also meeting the standards of the Catalan Library System. It will remain state-owned, but its management will be entrusted to the Generalitat.

The facility will complement the Barcelona Library Network, highlighting the importance of the city’s publishing sector and its status as a UNESCO-recognised City of Literature, a title Barcelona received in 2015.