Federico García Lorca Center

The Federico García Lorca Center is a cultural institution devoted to research on the life and work of the poet from Granada, as well as to the dissemination of his literary production. The main objective that justified its construction was to preserve the poet’s legacy from the García Lorca Foundation, presided over by the poet’s heirs. It is also a space expressly designed to house all kinds of contemporary artistic events. It has an auditorium, exhibition halls, offices and a library equipped with a vault to store the most valuable material.

Above the library hangs the vault, built in steel, and fitted out to house the 5,000 manuscripts of García Lorca’s legacy and another 3,000 by different authors.

Construction began in 2006 but different problems delayed its inauguration until July 29, 2015. The first original documents, some two hundred of the 5,000 that make up the legacy, finally arrived in Granada in March 2018 as part of the exhibition A Room of One’s Own, curated by Andrés Soria, which reconstructs the years spent by the poet at the Residencia de Estudiantes (Students’ Residence) in Madrid. The exhibition opened on March 23, 2018. The Residencia de Estudiantes has actually been until now the place where the immense archive gathered by the family foundation has been preserved.

The new building that houses the García Lorca Center is located in the heart of Granada, in Romanilla Square, in an avant-garde building designed by architects Héctor Mendoza, Mónica Juvera, Mara Partida and Boris Bezan, part of the MX_SI Architectural Studio. The project won first prize in the public tender held for this purpose. The jury was composed of Rafael Moneo, Francesco Dal Co, Juan José Lahuerta and Alberto Campo Baeza, among other prestigious architects.

The building, with a total area of 4,700 square meters, consists of two main elements, the library and the theater. The library consists of a book and reading area above which hangs the steel vault, designed to house not only the 5,000 manuscripts of García Lorca’s legacy, but also 3,000 manuscripts by different authors, as well as an undetermined number of drawings, works of art, photographs and an extensive historical newspaper library.

The auditorium, on the other hand, is equipped with an acoustic shell and has a seating capacity of 424 spectators. During the interim period from its opening until the arrival of the legacy and the appointment of the management, it has hosted concerts and sessions of the Granada Music and Dance Festival, of the City of Granada Poetry festival or the Festival of the Three Cultures Foundation.

The center also has a 500-meter exhibition hall and various spaces for workshops and offices.