It took eight years to restore this jewel of modernist architecture, which was reinaugurated in 2018. It used to be an open-air market. Ildefons Cerdà proposed building a covered market, and it was architect Antoni Rovira i Trias who set to work on it between 1879 and 1882. Textile merchants then set up stalls alongside market gardeners and butchers, giving rise to the flea market: Mercat dels Encants de Sant Antoni. Later, an antiquarian book market, the Mercat del Llibre Vell, was added to Barcelona's most modern market.