If everything goes as it should, the future Casa de les Lletres will open in Palau Requesens – as La Vanguardia already reported two weeks ago – in the first quarter of 2027, and in addition to maintaining the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Letters, the Institution of Catalan Letters, the Association of Writers in the Catalan Language (AELC), the Associació Col·legial d'Escriptors de Catalunya (ACEC), the Catalan PEN, Espais Escrits ( Catalan Literary Heritage Network) and the Catalan Children and Youth Book Council (ibbycat).
Thus, the palace "will become a reference physical space for literary creation in our country" and "will resolve a historical debt with the entities, which have been asking for a space of their own for some time", said the Minister of Culture, Natàlia Garriga, in the presentation of the project this Thursday. The minister explained that the project, which has a budget of 4.8 million euros, is a proposal of the National Book and Reading Plan (PNLL), based on a request that dates back several years, and which was partially on the verge of being fulfilled when the Barcelona City Council announced in 2017 (with Jaume Collboni as deputy mayor of Business, Culture and Innovation) a project with some similarities (in addition to the entities of creators was to host the Library Consortium, and Unesco's Barcelona City of Literature offices in the old TMB garages and was planned for 2019). According to Garriga, the proximity of the State's new public library, to França station, can turn the area into a cultural hub to "invigorate this part of the city from a local perspective. It will be a space won by culture, by the sector and by citizens". "A few years from now - Garriga assured - we will look back and see that thanks to the decisions of this legislature, the center of our capital will end up having two literary spaces that feed each other, and where culture is the greatest main character".
At the moment, the architect of the Generalitat Mercè Martínez is finishing drafting the functional plan of the building, cataloged as a cultural asset of national interest, with which a contest of ideas will be called, which should award the third quarter of this year, with the forecast that the works will be finished at the end of 2026 and can be inaugurated in the first quarter of 2027. Apart from the work to accommodate the new activity, the palace is already starting to be rehabilitated, with the ministry's commitment that academic activity will not be interrupted at any time.
Borja de Riquer, president of the Royal Academy of Good Letters, has taken a historical tour of the Gothic palace going back to its origins, in the 13th century, although most of the structure is from the 15th, but built in part on the Roman wall itself, with some avatars including the conversion into a tobacco warehouse after confiscation in 1837, until the academy entered it in 1917, which found it almost in ruins and restored it in successive phases . The building is currently owned by the Generalitat, which had ceded it to the academy in an agreement that ended this year, and by mutual agreement it was decided to build a new one that would allow the rehabilitation of the spaces and at the same time turning the building into a hub of activity outside. In addition to the enabling of common spaces, it is planned that it will be a visitable building, with a cafe called Tinellet, and rooms where you can do activities with the public, as well as the opening of its small romantic garden - with the large garden of the Ateneo, are the only ones of this kind in Barcelona.
"In the academies we lack visualizing ourselves in society", said Riquer, so as the president of the AELC, Sebastià Portell, said, "coexistence will be more than profitable". Portell recalled the "generous process of conversation and participation" in the PNLL, because from the authors' institutions "we have been burdened but we are happy because we have found accomplices". The House of Letters, "will provide institutional stability and become a place of reference and prestige", he recalled. Currently, the AELC, ACEC and Pen Català are based at the Ateneu Barcelonès.
