El Siglo

El Siglo is a 150-capacity concert room in Sant Cugat del Vallès, on Barcelona’s edge, inside Mercantic. Its distinguishing feature is literal: performances unfold amid a second-hand bookshop with over 150,000 volumes on its shelves. That setting gives the room a close-scale, furnished feel, combining the focus of a listening space with the visual clutter and warmth of a working old-book store.

Books, a factory site, and a 2013 transfer

El Siglo opened in 2006 as a second-hand bookshop, conceived from the outset for concerts, small shows and film sessions. Its wider setting carries an earlier industrial history: Mercantic opened in 1992 on the grounds of a ceramic factory founded by Josep Barnils in 1956. The decisive expansion came in 2013, when El Siglo took in 120,000 books from Barcelona’s Llibreria Canuda after that shop closed on November 23, 2013. The transfer included Canuda’s shelving and furnishings, and brought El Siglo’s holdings to about 150,000 books. That physical inheritance explains the room’s stage-side atmosphere: a concert venue assembled inside a library collection, with the visual language of salvaged retail interiors and vintage furniture.

The room now

El Siglo’s public rhythm centers on weekend concert-vermouth sessions at midday, plus evening events. The current program shows jazz and neo-soul alongside emerging-artist showcases, while the broader space also accommodates literary events, art activity and microtheatre. A bar operates during weekend daytime hours and for events, and the venue sits within Mercantic’s cultural-and-leisure district. Expect an intimate, book-lined room instead of a purpose-built club: the documented 130-square-metre space pairs professional sound and lighting with a piano, drum kit, projector and screen.