A “madhouse” turned into an archives.

The Institut Mental de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau opened on 19 November 1889, with the aim of providing mentally ill people with the best possible assistance in the city and training new psychiatrists. The main promoters of this mental asylum were Dr Emili Pi i Molist, then its director, and Archbishop Josep Oriol i Bernardet. Both worked on the project between 1855 and 1860, taking the best psychiatrist in Western Europe as their model.

The asylum, located between Horta and Sant Andreu, in the old village of Sant Andreu del Palomar in the grounds of a large estate called Can Amell Xic, was an enormous building, 600 metres long by 250 wide.

However, during the 1960s, it began to fall into decline. Several pavilions were knocked down to build the Barcinova and Calinova estates, before the last patients left in 1987.

The Nou Barris Archives occupied part of the building that houses the District Municipal Council until 1995, a side wing where the Nou Barris Library was built later. These days, the Archives' facilities are on the first floor of the building.

Apart from the Municipal Archives and other municipal services, the three remaining pavilions house the Nou Barris District headquarters, the library and the Guàrdia Urbana police barracks.