The Galați County Library V.A. Urechia (Biblioteca Județeană „V.A. Urechia” Galați) is the main public library of Galați County, housed in the former Palace of the European Commission of the Danube in central Galați. Founded at the end of the 19th century, the library preserves an important collection of rare books, manuscripts, correspondence, prints and other historical documents alongside its modern public-library collections.
The institution began with a large donation from scholar, historian and politician Vasile Alexandrescu Urechia, who offered several thousand volumes for the creation of a public library in Galați. King Carol I approved its establishment by royal decree in December 1889, and the library opened to the public in November 1890 in rooms at Vasile Alecsandri High School. Urechia continued adding books and documents during the following years, helping the collection grow well beyond the original donation.
The library moved several times as its holdings expanded, including a period in a purpose-built cultural palace on Strada Domnească. In 1968 it settled in its present headquarters on Strada Mihai Bravu, the former seat of the European Commission of the Danube.
That building had been constructed in the 1890s for the international commission responsible for improving and regulating navigation on the lower Danube. It housed the commission’s General Secretariat, archive and library and also provided rooms for meetings and staff accommodation. Bombardment in 1917 left little more than parts of the exterior and interior walls standing, and the palace was rebuilt extensively between 1922 and 1923 before the commission resumed its work there. After the commission was dissolved in 1948, several other institutions used the building before it was assigned to the library.
The Neoclassical interior preserves details from the reconstructed palace, including marble stairs, mosaic floors, decorative stucco, wood paneling and metalwork. Maritime motifs such as anchors and tridents appear among the ornament, while the upper-floor skylight is bordered by colored glass and laurel decoration.
Among the library’s most distinctive holdings are the historical collections assembled by V.A. Urechia and later generations of librarians. They include old Romanian and foreign books, manuscripts, correspondence, maps, prints, photographs and archival material, with some documents dating back several centuries. These special collections preserve both the legacy of the library’s founder and material relating to the cultural and historical development of Galați and the wider region.
