Barcelona Library Named Best New Public Library in the World

We love the Biblioteca Gabriel García Márquez in Barcelona. Designed by SUMA Arquitectura, the library—named after Nobel Prize laureate Gabriel García Márquez—is a geometric wonder. Inspired by Ildefonso Cerdá’s design of the city’s Exiample district, the five-story, octagon-shaped building resembles a stack of open books with folded pages. The library also serves as a central community hub, offering workshops on creativity, languages, and digital literacy. And it was recently named the best new library of the year.

Library Passport: Barcelona’s Geometric Beauty

In the monthly feature, Library Passport, I Love Libraries satisfies its neverending wanderlust by highlighting exceptional libraries from around the world. Grab your passport and join us!

We’re in love with the Gabriel García Márquez Library in Barcelona, Spain. The library is dedicated to the Colombian Nobel laureate who lived in the city from 1967-1975 and specializes in Latin American literature. It opened to the public in June 2022, but had been in planning and production for almost a decade.

“The plan for the new library was under way when García Márquez died in 2014 so it was decided to name it in his honour because he and many other Latin American authors had a close relationship with the city,” Library Director Neus Castellano told The Guardian. “It’s a nod towards the role Barcelona has played in Latin American literature.”

Gabriel García Márquez LibraryDesigned by SUMA Arquitectura, the 5-story library is a geometric wonder inspired by Ildefonso Cerdá, whose design of the city’s Exiample district in the 19th century revolutionized both Barcelona and urban design worldwide. The octagonal-shaped building looks like a sculpture with sides adorned with vertical and horizontal panels that pull the eyes in different directions without looking busy or distracting. Inside, the library is situated around a large triangular courtyard with a staircase connecting the floors. “This large void allows natural light to reach the library, also acting as a ‘solar chimney,'” writes Lucia Brandoli in Domus.

The use of wood throughout the interior creates a warm, relaxing atmosphere. “The library … wants to look like a stack of open books, with folded and perforated pages,” writes Brandoli. “Each book’ is created by a structure of wood panels oriented in different directions, defined by structural needs, lighting conditions, functional program and urban connections.”

Learn more about the Gabriel García Márquez Library-and see more photos of this breathtaking space-at SUMA Arquitectura.


If you’d like to learn more about libraries from around the world, look no further than the American Library Association’s (ALA) International Relations Office. The office’s mission is to increase ALA’s presence in the global library community and promote a greater understanding of international librarianship and international library issues, among other things. The office does a lot of cool stuff, like the Sister Library program, which helps U.S. libraries set up partnerships with libraries abroad. Check it out!

Photos by Jesús Granada, courtesy of SUMA Arquitectura.

Ancient Libraries Disappearing in the Sahara

Chinguetti’s libraries are disappearing.

The ancient city in Mauritania in eastern Africa is losing a battle with the surrounding Sahara Desert, which is slowly threatening to bury not only Chinguetti but also its 13 libraries-some of which hold manuscripts that date to the 12th century.

The Washington Post recently published a fascinating interactive photo essay on Chinguetti’s plight. It’s both breathtakingly beautiful and heartbreaking. Details about the libraries’ future and their holdings, ranging from works on Islamic law to poetry and mathematics, are particularly distressing. The Post reports: “As the desert sand encroaches on the oasis city with every year, some historians worry the texts may not be protected much longer.

“Despite calls for the texts to be moved to more protected sanctuaries, Saif al Islam al Ahmed Mohmoud, one of the libraries’ overseers, told the BBC in 2020 that the manuscripts would be nothing without the libraries that hold them.

“‘It’s impossible to give up your house, your leg or your eye and preserve them at the same time,’ he said. ‘This is our inheritance.'”

Old manuscript in Chinguetti library

Old manuscript in Chinguetti library. Photo: Ji-Elle, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Manuscripts in a Chinguetti library. Photo: Ji-Elle, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Manuscripts in a Chinguetti library. Photo: www.Bildtankstelle.de, CC BY-SA 1.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

A man reads a manuscript at a Chinguetti library. Photo: Cremedelacreme, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

A man reads a manuscript at a Chinguetti library. Photo: Cremedelacreme, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Feature photo: Ji-Elle, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons