Museu do Oriente

On Alcântara’s waterfront, the Orient Museum shows how a former dockside warehouse can become a place where worlds meet. Opened in 2008 inside the modernist building of the former refrigerated cod warehouses, designed from 1939 onwards, it holds two collections that define its character with unusual clarity. On one side, Portuguese Presence in Asia brings together thousands of objects and reveals the fascination, exchange and curiosity that shaped the relationship between Portugal and the East. On the other, the Kwok On collection, regarded as one of the most representative of its kind in Europe, opens a path into the performing arts, rituals and popular religions of a much wider Asia. During a visit, it is worth noticing the contrast between the building’s industrial sobriety and the richness of puppets, masks, folding screens, ivories and ritual objects. Few museums in Lisbon manage to feel at once so calm, so layered and so open to dialogue.