Convent del Carme, Gothic-Renaissance monastery in El Carme, Valencia, Spain

The Convent del Carme is a former Carmelite monastery whose buildings span the 14th to 18th centuries. Its Valencian Gothic cloister has a square plan with four pointed arches per side, simple rib vaults resting on carved corbels with heraldic figures, and sculpted bosses at the vault keystones. The 16th-century Renaissance cloister to the west has two levels: eight arches on columns per side below and sixteen smaller arches above, with a plain entablature on small brackets as its only ornament.

The Carmelites settled in Valencia in 1280, and in 1281 Peter III of Aragon granted them permission to build their first monastery. In 1839, after the exclaustration, the empty convent opened as the Museo del Carme to house art orphaned by the confiscations; in 1848 the Academy of San Carlos moved in and began managing the collections, creating the nucleus of the Museum of Fine Arts of Valencia. The museum's holdings were transferred in 1946 to the college of San Pío V, and the convent remained abandoned until restoration began in the 1980s.

The cultural center hosts rotating exhibitions of contemporary art, performance, and design within the historic rooms and cloisters. Visitors experience how modern creative work finds a home within medieval monastic spaces.

The complex can be explored on foot with accessible areas throughout, though some stairs are present in certain sections. Wearing comfortable shoes is recommended since the stone surfaces and uneven floors require steady footing.

During the 2011 restoration of the chapter house, refectory and dormitory, workers uncovered the remains of an Islamic house from the raval that stood here before the convent. A north-south street and parts of its houses are now visible through glass panels, with rooms, a courtyard with painted walls, red and yellow tile paving, a well and a basin.