Located in the heart of the country’s capital, El Salvador’s BINAES Library stands tall as a monument to the love of knowledge, literature and technology – and is available to the public 24 hours a day, free of charge. BINAES is located directly in front of and carefully aligned with the Cathedral Metropolitana de San Salvador, and is also flanked by the National Palace of El Salvador (on its left/side) and the Jardín Centroamérica, all symbols and reminders of the dream. The dream of a society that elevates beauty, love of knowledge and faith and shares them with the world.
Having traveled to many countries and cities in my life, I have to say that the safety, quiet and cleanliness of this area of San Salvador was amazing. It is an unignorable contrast to the city squares of many Western capitals, which are often unsafe, littered and host homeless people and drug addicts. Instead, outside the library, in the parks and walking paths of the city square, as well as inside the library, palace and gardens, children and their families can be seen in peace, running around and enjoying this national treasure.
Donated to El Salvador by the Chinese government, the BINAES building consists of 7 floors with a wide range of amenities, including a cafeteria on the first floor and an Italian restaurant on the seventh floor. Large space to host events of various sizes, both public and private. BINAES features a sleek, futuristic design, consistent with its facilities and a vision for the future of El Salvador, which also prominently features Bitcoin technology and educational materials.
With a strong focus on supporting families and the next generation, the second floor is a toddler playground filled with educational tools, books and physical entertainment options for kids to unleash their energy. The third floor has a large section dedicated to LEGO toys, a powerful educational tool known to stimulate a love of building in children, with multiple tables where parents sit with their children and play. It also hosts video games for kids, such as cooperative and family-friendly games like Mario Party and the legendary Minecraft.
The fourth floor is dedicated to children aged 8 to 12 as well as fantasy and fantasy fans, with areas dedicated to Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, as well as hundreds of manga books featuring some of the greatest stories of the Japanese genre. Many of these areas include a collection of Lego pieces and merchandise from the films, as well as entire libraries of books for each fictional universe.
The fifth floor is home to literature, history, and adult books, and is considered the heart of the library, housing thousands of books in all major genres. Among them, a broad section on the social sciences, which includes economics, hosts some samples of libertarian Austrian economists such as Mises, Milton Friedman, Rothbard, and Ayn Rand, although not a very deep variety.
This particular topic, which is very important to the history and economic theory of Bitcoin and its cultural roots, is one that the library received some criticism for years ago when it was first completed. At the time, a popular tweet claimed that the library had no works on libertarian economic theory, something that has changed today, but could improve further. Their collection, for example, contained no fictional work by Rand, only two of his philosophical books. This is something that can be changed easily enough, as the library accepts book donations. Donors can contribute by first emailing BINAES staff at consultalealbliotecario@cultura.gob.sv.
The sixth floor is the high-tech area. When you exit the elevators, the first thing you see is a Bitcoin-shaped bookshelf containing a robust collection of literature on Bitcoin, covering its economics, software engineering, and the history of money, among many other topics. This specific installation is a project from before Alejandra Guajardoalso known as Miss Bitcoin, is a Salvadoran model who represented the nation in the 2022 Miss Universe pageant. Her Bitcoin bookshelf The initiative looks forward to spreading installations of this type in libraries around the world, with expansion in Mexico. Bitcoin users who want to lead the installation of Bitcoin bookshelves in their local libraries can contact her to make this happen.
In the middle of the same floor is a beautiful Bitcoin lounge area, with another similarly shaped bookshelf and several Bitcoin stuffed toys called Little Hodlers Led by artist and Bitcoin evangelist Lina Sishi. A huge screen appears Mempool. spacea great and very popular Bitcoin block explorer, which displays live network data and statistics.
This floor is also home to 3D printers, robotics tools, interactive whiteboards in the form of a digital screen, a gaming area complete with state-of-the-art gaming consoles, a virtual reality area, computers available to the public for research, and a digital collection of more than 9 million books Available to the public. In addition to many office environments designated for students and teams to benefit from and get some work done.
And last but not least is the seventh floor, home to the Art Gallery, which at the time of my visit was hosting a variety of art pieces, showcasing the history of El Salvador through the architecture of the region’s famous sites. In the center of this art hall, between the gallery and the Basílico Italian Bistro, are portraits of Bukele and First Lady Gabriella Bukele, perfectly aligned with the Metropolitan Cathedral across the square, a beautiful architectural detail that reinforces the harmonious union between classical arts and faith.
Overall, despite the library’s high-tech Chinese design, which somewhat contrasts with the classical Romanesque architecture of the area, BINAES is more likely to serve as a fantasy legacy for the self-described library The philosopher king And its management.
