In the depths of the Caryatid Building in Madrid is a vault containing some of the greatest treasures of Spanish literature. The headquarters of the Cervantes Institute, a global non-profit promoting the Spanish language and culture named after the "Don Quixote" writer, has been housed in the Caryatid Building since 2006. It was originally constructed in the early years of the 20th century as the grand bank for Banco Español del Río de la Plata on the historic Alcalá street in central Madrid.
Today, the original bank vault has been renamed the “Caja de las Letras” and it contains countless treasures, more literary than literal. Among the 1,700 drawers of the old safe, there is Nicanor Parra's typewriter, José Saramago's phone book, a bowler hat belonging to musician Joaquín Sabina, the Nobel medal for Medicine won in 1906 by Ramón y Cajal, a broken brass bracelet that belonged to Elena Poniatowska's father and, above all, many books, drafts and manuscripts, some of them unpublished. It’s all part of an initiative by the Cervantes Institute to preserve and document the richness of Hispanic culture.
“The initiative is a response to reality,” explains Luis García Montero, Cervantes Institute director. “The Cervantes Institute headquarters building was a financial building. The Banco del Río de la Plata was located here at the beginning of the 20th century and when, after passing through different financial institutions, it came to the Cervantes Instit.