Palau Maldà

Palau Maldà is a large residential building that was built in the 17th century for the Cortada family. It is located between Carrer del Pi and Carrer d’en Perot lo Lladre, in the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona and was owned by the Baron of Maldà. The Baron of Maldà was the writer Rafael d’Amat i de Cortada, who lived in this building when he wrote his diary "Calaix de sastre" (miscellany).

The palace has three floors and a stone facade with surbased arches on the ground floor and balconies on the two upper floors. In the 19th century its ownership was transferred, by marriage, to the Marquis of Castellbell and after the Spanish Civil War its floors were transformed into homes and the cinema you see today was installed on the ground floor.

How do you get to Palau Maldà?

You can reach Carrer del Pi and Palau Maldà from the Barri Gòtic stop on the Red Route of Barcelona Bus Turístic or from Plaça de Catalunya, the start and end of both the Red Route and the Blue Route of Barcelona Bus Turístic.

For the most curious of you

• Did you know? Rafael d'Amat i de Cortada was the author of an immense 60-volume diary, written from 1769 to his death in 1819, that was called "Calaix de sastre", which in English is literally ‘tailor’s drawer’ and means a jumble or miscellany. It is the best chronicle of Barcelona from the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
• Local’s tip: If you go through the Galeries Maldà shopping centre to Plaça del Pi you will find the Casa del Gremi de Revenedors, the Guild of Traders building, which features Barcelona’s oldest sgraffito work (1685). It is the home of a popular knife shop established in 1911, Ganiveteria Roca.