The Royal Academy of Fine Letters could soon have new residents. The Department of Culture intends to make Palau Requesens, its current headquarters, the future Casa de les Lletres and bring together different cultural entities linked to the book sector there.
This is a project that is in a very initial phase, so it is unknown which exact groups would move there, although some resonate, such as the Institució de les Lletres Catalanes, the PEN Català, the Collegiate Association of Writers of Catalonia (ACEC ) or the Associació d'Writers in Catalan Language (AELC). Most of them prefer to stay on the sidelines until the project becomes official, although the AELC, which does not confirm whether or not it will change its location later, remembers that this is a claim that it has been making for more than two decades together with other entities. authors and hopes that it can be specified in the terms included in the National Plan for Books and Reading.
Sources from the Royal Academy of Bones Lletres explain to La Vanguardia that the proposal came to them “about six months ago” from the Department of Culture. Until now, there was an agreement between both parties, but Culture would have decided not to extend it and propose a new one “linked to reconstruction works because the Palau Requesens urgently needs to be renovated. We need an elevator, changing the electrical installation… A serious intervention that does not take four days.”
For now, the only certainty is that “this year it is planned to sign the new agreement and, surely before the summer, the perspective of works will be finalized. In any case, there are no dates for these to start, since it depends on the Generalitat. The route to follow would be, therefore, to carry out the project, approve it, include it in the budgets and put out the tender.”
When all this happens and the Palau is in better condition, it will be possible to accommodate these institutions, which "will leave their current premises and will settle in some spaces between the second and third floors." The Academy, installed in the Palau for more than a hundred years, will remain “on the main floor, the first, and in part of the second. There will be some shared spaces, such as the room baptized as 'tinellet'—named for its similarity to the Tinell in Plaza del Rei—and others that will be occupied by entities linked to the Department."
From the Academy they assure that, although “it is not an immediate project” and that, therefore, “it would not be a reality this year”, the idea is “very positive” since the Palau “would become a center of cultural dynamism powerful for both the neighborhood and Barcelona.”
The Palau Requesens in Barcelona is a monument listed as a Cultural Property of National Interest (BCIN). Located two minutes from Plaza Sant Jaume and the Basilica of the Holy Martyrs Sant Just i Pastor, in the Gothic quarter, it was the largest residential building that existed in the city in the medieval era. Belonging to the Requesens family, one of the most important of the Catalan nobility.
Although it is an architectural jewel located in the center of the Catalan capital, many Barcelonans do not have the pleasure of getting to know it, nor the treasures it houses inside, among which its Noucentista patio stands out. Partly this is because it is located in the dark cul-de-sac of the Bisbe Caçador. If the Casa de les Lletres finally becomes a reality, everything indicates that more visitors will come.
