
After the illegal eviction and without prior notification that the Barcelona City Council carried out a couple of days ago of the squatted space of l’Antiga Massana, the Consistory has rushed to present its project to remodel the space now that it has emptied it.
The project has been presented by Albert Batlle, councilor of Ciutat Vella and conseller de seguretat, therefore, directly responsible for the irregular eviction of the space. Batller has spoken of the new look of the place, which will become, among others, a passage that will connect the Plaça de la Gardunya with the Jardins de Rubió i Lluch and the district library of Ciutat Vella.
The works, which have a total budget of 75 million, will begin this summer and will see their first progress in early 2026. We explain all the details here.
La Massana: a pedestrian walkway
“Plaça de la Gardunya cannot be the back door to the market”. With these statements Albert Batlle summarized the intention to reform the space of l’Antiga Massana and the square where it is located, the Plaça de la Gardunya, which fails to stop being just that, an ungrateful backyard of the Mercat de la Boqueria.
To reverse this trend, the first step that the City Council wants to take in the space of l’Antiga Massana is to convert a section of the building into a passage that connects Plaça de la Gardunya with the Rubió i Lluch Gardens. To do this, the first floor of a section of the building will have to be demolished, which will allow the construction of the third entrance to the gardens, after the ones on Hospital Street and Sant Pau Street.
The intention is to “permeabilize” the area, visually connecting the gardens and the market and helping the flow of people between the two spaces.
In addition, the facades and cloister of the old Hospital de la Santa Creu building ( one of the most important medieval Gothic buildings in Catalonia) will be renovated and the Doctor Fleming Gardens will be refurbished to improve their appearance and use.
From art school to district library
On the other hand, the rest of the building will be converted into the Ciutat Vella district library and the extension of the Biblioteca de Catalunya, which is already located in another wing of the former hospital.
To do this, the current Biblioteca de Catalunya will be “moved” to the corner of Hospital and Egipcíaques streets, and the section of the building facing Plaça de la Gardunya will become the Ciutat Vella district library, which will face the Mercat de la Boqueria.
Finally, the building of the former kindergarten (a good part of which was occupied by the collectives of l’Antiga Massana before the eviction),will become an extension of the new Massana.
The government has also affirmed the will to relocate the entities that worked in the space of l’Antiga Massana, but has not explained how it intends to do so.