Casa de la Cultura

The building that today harbours the House of Culture is a fundamental piece in the history of the city. At its foundation it was a Franciscan Hospice and included the Chapel of Santa Catalina de Siena. It had many uses throughout history, and today it concentrates the cultural activity of the municipality.

Its beginnings date back to the year 1700, when a group of neighbours acquired the property for building a place to perpetuate the image of the supposed miracle worker Sister Catalina de San Mateo, born in this place, who had died five years earlier. From 1705 cults were already celebrated in the church, and the friars inhabited the hospice. From the beginning the building was used as a "school of first letters", in whose classrooms important figures such as the sculptor Luján Pérez or Canónigo Gordillo would receive instruction. The property was a victim of ecclesiastical amortisations in the 19th century, then becoming civil property. At present it is a municipal building that, after an important restoration work in the nineties, is used as the House of Culture and in its rear part the Municipal Library. Throughout history, the property has also had other uses such as theatre, warehouse or jail.