Mercado del Carmen

The Market del Carmen, located in the former convent of the Carmelites, is one of the crucial addresses in Mahon. This place exudes the city's popular atmosphere as well as its history. The edifice of a neo-classical style was built between the 18th and the 19th century. In 1835, the Mendizábal government decree forces the Carmelites to give up the place. The convents and their lands passed into the hands of the municipality and the well-to-do families of the city. The convent's buildings were then transformed, housing the jail, the court of justice, a girls' college and a market.

The building was restored several times, mainly following bombings that took place during the Spanish Civil War between 1936 and 1939.

Despite all those transformations, the building retains some architectural elements specific to convents, like the consoles sculpted by the Catalan artist Ferran Miquel Comas Ramón.

This edifices currently houses Mahon's main market, as well as various cultural organizations such as the music conservatory, the University of distant learning, the library of the Rubió Foundation and the headquarters of the Hernández Sanz y Hernández Mora Museum, two famous artists and collectors of the city. The museum allows to contemplate watercolors of a Minorcan popular style, works by the painters Chiessa, Calvo and Anton Scharnz, as well as a map collection of the port of Mahon and the island of Minorca. It presents many cultural activities, concerts, exhibitions and shows, like the famous Minorca International Jazz Festival.

The market, also called La Plaza, is also a reference meeting point for the city's inhabitants, who go there to have a drink of to buy a few of the islan's highly renowned gastronomic products like its meat and cheese.