Koldo Mitxelena Kulturunea

The Koldo Mitxelena Kulturunea stands out for its curved, red sandstone facade that breaks the grid of the surrounding nineteenth-century architecture. Originally built as a high school, the building honors the Basque linguist Koldo Mitxelena, who famously argued that the Basque language was the oldest in Europe. When the library opened here in nineteen ninety-three, staff had to transport over three hundred thousand books from the old provincial library by hand, forming a human chain that stretched across several city streets.