Monastery Library in Fitero

In 1140, the Cistercian order founded the monastery in Navarra de Fitero in Spain. During the early period, it comprised an abbey church, a chapter house, a dormitory and a refectory. Over the centuries, the complex was extended by an abbot’s palace, a library and other buildings. The two-storey cloisters with pointed-arch arcading and external buttressing form the architectural highlight of the ensemble. A pyramidal timber roof with a lantern light at the apex has now been raised over the restored and partly rebuilt kitchen, which today serves as an access space to the new exhibition areas and the cloisters. The semi-darkness of the refectory is used for the audiovisual presentation of medieval relics of monastic life. The grid of beams of the new timber ceiling sits precisely on the existing stone corbels. In the Baroque library, the architectural measures were confined to restoration work and the insertion of display cases for historical books, prints and clothing.