Cultural places in Portugal

Museum • Lisboa, Lisboa

The Museum of Communications, in Lisbon, is the public face of the Portuguese Communications Foundation and preserves the material memory of a sector that has accompanied the country’s history for centuries. The collection has deep roots: in 1878, guidelines from the Ministry of Public Works, Commerce and Industry led to the creation of the “Postal Museum”, begun with thirty pieces. Today, the heritage includes objects from the 16th century to the present day and is organised into three major areas: postal collections, telecommunications collections, and artistic and philatelic collections. The permanent exhibition “Overcoming Distance – Five Centuries of Communications in Portugal” shows how writing, the post, the telegraph, the telephone and other technologies changed the relationship between people and territories. Along the route there are also the Mail Coach, linked to the transport of mail and passengers, and submarine cables, essential to understanding contemporary global communication. It is a museum about the human need to overcome distance.

Museum • Lisboa, Lisboa

In Campo Grande, Lisbon, the Bordalo Pinheiro Museum was born from the dedication of Arthur Ernesto Santa Cruz Magalhães, a collector and admirer of Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro’s work. The house intended to receive the collection was designed by Álvaro Augusto Machado, and the museum opened to the public on 6 August 1916. According to EGEAC, it was the first museum in Portugal built from the ground up to house the work of an artist. Its collection brings together the creations of Rafael and his son Manuel Gustavo, including drawing, engraving, painting, ceramics, tiles, photography, documentation and other objects. The collection, now numbering around 13,200 pieces, shows Bordalo’s satirical, graphic and decorative power, including the famous Zé Povinho, created in 1875. More than a house of homage, the museum preserves a critical and inventive view of Portuguese society in the late 19th century.

Cultural Centre • Lisboa, Lisboa

In Praça das Amoreiras, Lisbon, the Arpad Szenes-Vieira da Silva Foundation occupies the former Silk Textile Factory, a spacious Pombaline house linked to an early 20th-century industrial structure. It was Maria Helena Vieira da Silva who chose this building to hold her memory, that of Arpad Szenes and an essential part of her artistic legacy. The idea emerged after Arpad’s death in 1985 and developed from a study centre into a museum dedicated to the two painters. The Foundation was established in 1990 and opened to the public on 4 November 1994. The collection brings together painting, drawing and printmaking, covering Arpad Szenes’s production from 1911 to 1985 and Vieira da Silva’s from 1926 to 1986, with later prints by the artist. The Documentation and Research Centre preserves photographs, correspondence, manuscripts and other materials that extend the study of the couple’s work.

Science Centre • Lisboa, Lisboa

In Parque das Nações, Lisbon, the Pavilion of Knowledge – Ciência Viva occupies the building that, during the 132 days of EXPO’98, housed the Pavilion of Knowledge of the Seas. Designed by João Luís Carrilho da Graça’s studio, it was one of the most visited thematic pavilions of the exhibition, with 2,543,914 visitors. In 1999, the building was assigned to the creation of a space for scientific and technological outreach and reopened to the public, on 25 July, as the Pavilion of Knowledge. Today it is part of the National Network of Ciência Viva Centres and is presented by the network itself as the country’s largest science and technology centre. Across some 4,000 square metres, exhibitions on Physics, Mathematics, Chemistry, Biology and Social Sciences are combined with interactive modules, laboratories, talks and experimental activities. The architecture received the Valmor and Municipal Architecture Prize in 1998.

Museum • Lisboa, Lisboa

On Rua de São Bento, in Lisbon, the Amália Rodrigues House-Museum preserves the house where the artist lived for more than four decades. Open to the public since 2001, it maintains the domestic atmosphere connected to her personal and artistic life, giving concrete form to the wish to preserve and share her legacy. The Amália Rodrigues Foundation, established by the singer’s own will, has the mission of protecting, studying and disseminating her work, her contribution to fado and Portuguese culture. Inside, memory appears through personal objects, documents, photographs, letters, press cuttings, decoration diplomas, manuscripts and poems. Among these materials are versions of lyrics such as “Ó Gente da Minha Terra” and “Quando Se Gosta d’Alguém”. More than a biographical evocation, the house reveals the link between Amália’s public voice and the intimacy of a preserved daily life.

Museum • Lisboa, Lisboa

In Largo do Chafariz de Dentro, Lisbon, the Fado Museum is entirely dedicated to Lisbon’s urban song and to the Portuguese Guitar. It opened to the public on 25 September 1998, celebrating fado as an expression linked to the city’s identity and to the country’s cultural history. Housed in a former Water Pumping Station, built in the second half of the 19th century, the building was restored and extended by the architects João and José Daniel Santa-Rita. The permanent exhibition follows the history of fado and the Portuguese guitar, while the documentation centre, auditorium and school extend research, learning and practice. The collection brings together estates of performers, authors, composers, musicians, instrument makers, scholars and researchers. Since 2011, fado has been included on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, and the museum played a central role in the nomination.

Museum • Lisboa, Lisboa

Near Lisbon Cathedral, the Aljube Museum — Resistance and Freedom occupies a building marked by a long prison history. The name Aljube itself comes from the Arabic al-jubb, associated with a dry well, cistern, dungeon or prison. According to the museum, the building dates back to the Roman and Islamic periods and was, over time, an ecclesiastical jail, a women’s prison and, between 1928 and 1965, a political prison. Created in 2015, the museum is dedicated to the memory of the struggle against the Portuguese dictatorship, which lasted from 1926 to 1974, and to resistance in the name of freedom and democracy. The long-term exhibition presents the history of the building, the regime’s mechanisms of repression and oppression, the opposition movements, the anti-colonial struggle and the path to 25 April 1974. On the lower floor, archaeological remains recall that this place of memory has roots far older than the dictatorship.

Museum • Lisboa, Lisboa

Housed in the former stables and warehouses of Belém Palace, in Lisbon, the Museum of the Presidency of the Republic brings republican history closer to the country’s public life. The idea emerged at the end of António Ramalho Eanes’s term: in 1986, the President opened a section in the Palace with 84 State gifts. In 2000, the Organic Law of the General Secretariat of the Presidency of the Republic formally created the Museum, dedicated to the dissemination and historical research of the presidential institution. The present building was inaugurated by Jorge Sampaio on 5 October 2004. The collection contains around 4,500 pieces, including State gifts, personal objects, decorations, vehicles and movable heritage from the presidential palaces. The route presents, among other sections, the Gallery of Official Portraits, the Portuguese Honorary Orders and the powers of the President of the Republic. In the same complex, Belém Palace has been the official presidential residence since the establishment of the Republic.

Museum • Lisboa, Lisboa

In Praça Afonso de Albuquerque, in Belém, the Royal Riding Hall preserves the equestrian memory of the Portuguese court and the museological birth of the National Coach Museum. The building was constructed in 1787 by the Italian architect Giacomo Azzolini and, in 1905, became the space chosen to house the Royal Coach Museum, inaugurated on the initiative of Queen D. Amélia. For this new function, the former riding hall was adapted by the court architect Rosendo Carvalheira, with the collaboration of the painters José Malhoa and Conceição e Silva. After the establishment of the Republic in 1910, the collection grew with vehicles from the former Royal House and Church property; in 1911, the museum became known as the National Coach Museum. The hall designed by Raul Lino, inaugurated in 1944, expanded the exhibition space. Today, the Royal Riding Hall retains coaches, berlins, portraits of the royal family and cavalry accessories.

Museum • Lisboa, Lisboa

In the heart of Chiado, the National Museum of Contemporary Art – Museu do Chiado follows Portuguese art from 1850 to the present day. It was founded by decree of the Republic on 26 May 1911, when the former National Museum of Fine Arts was divided between art produced before 1850, assigned to the National Museum of Ancient Art, and later works, installed in the Convent of São Francisco. Its location links the museum to an area of Lisbon frequented by artists and intellectual circles from the generations represented in the collection. After the Chiado fire in 1988, the works were removed as a precaution, and the museum reopened on 12 July 1994, renovated by Jean-Michel Wilmotte. The collection brings together painting, sculpture, drawing, video, photography and installation, spanning Romanticism, Naturalism, Modernism and contemporary creation. Between building, collection and urban memory, the MNAC reads Lisbon through the history of Portuguese art.

Museum • Lisboa, Lisboa

On Rua dos Bacalhoeiros, Casa dos Bicos is one of the five branches of the Museum of Lisbon and houses, on the ground floor, an archaeological centre devoted to the city’s history. The building was constructed in the 16th century by order of D. Brás de Albuquerque, inspired by Italian Renaissance models, among them the Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara. The façade, classified as a National Monument, owes its name to the stones carved into diamond points, whose texture contrasts with the irregular arrangement of the openings. Inside, the remains reveal several layers of Lisbon, from the Roman occupation to the 18th century. Sections of wall, fish-salting tanks and everyday objects can be seen. On the upper floors, granted to the José Saramago Foundation, the house extends its cultural life. Between architecture, archaeology and urban memory, Casa dos Bicos shows Lisbon as a city built upon successive histories.

Museum • Lisboa, Lisboa

In Chiado, Lisbon, the MUP – Police Museum occupies part of the former Convent of São Francisco, a building that served as the headquarters of the PSP’s Lisbon Metropolitan Command. Inaugurated in July 2023, it presents the exhibition “The Public Security Police in History”, devoted to the PSP’s path from the creation of the civil police in 1867 to the present day. The museum grew out of the project “Public Security Police: History and Heritage”, developed in partnership between the PSP National Directorate and NOVA FCSH, with the aim of studying, organising and musealising the institution’s historical collections. The route connects the police’s organisational, functional and cultural evolution with the political and social history of contemporary Portugal. Among documents, photographs, objects, videos and multimedia resources, the idea of the “giro” stands out: the urban round that marked the police’s earliest duties in the streets of the cities.

Cultural Centre • Lisboa, Lisboa

At the Casa dos Bicos, in Lisbon, the José Saramago Foundation brings together the writer’s memory and a long urban history. Established by José Saramago in June 2007, the foundation is dedicated to literature and culture in the Portuguese language, to promoting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to defending the environment. Since June 2012, it has been based in this building on Rua dos Bacalhoeiros, commissioned in 1523 by Brás de Albuquerque, son of Afonso de Albuquerque, after a journey to Italy. The façade, classified as a National Monument, is distinguished by stones carved into diamond points, in Renaissance taste, and by windows inspired by the Manueline language. The house has had private and public uses, was once used as a cod warehouse, and today hosts the permanent exhibition dedicated to Saramago’s life and work. On the ground floor, the archaeological centre reveals traces of Lisbon from the Roman occupation to the present day.

Museum • Lisboa, Lisboa

Housed on the ground floor of the Carmo Barracks, in Lisbon, the Museum of the Guarda Nacional Republicana occupies a place where institutional history intersects with the country’s political history. The barracks correspond to the former Carmo Convent, completed in 1423, and have been the headquarters of the military guard forces since 1845. It was also in this building that, on 25 April 1974, the transfer of power from Marcelo Caetano to General António de Spínola was completed. Prepared from 2005 onwards, the museum had its first section inaugurated in 2014 and opened regularly to the public in 2015. The exhibition follows a chronological route: it begins with D. Nuno Álvares Pereira and Carmo, moves through the former police guards and reaches the creation of the GNR, decreed in 1911. Objects, documents, uniforms and the recreation of a rural station show how security, memory and public service are inscribed in Portuguese everyday life.

Museum • Lisboa, Lisboa

The Museu Banksy in Lisbon presents an immersive reading of Banksy’s work through more than 100 reproductions, arranged as video installations, graffiti, canvases, projections and murals. It is not a museum authorised by the artist: the exhibition itself states that it was organised without his involvement, a detail consistent with Banksy’s critical relationship with authorship, the market and institutions. The route brings together works associated with different geographies, from the United Kingdom to France, from the United States to Palestine/Israel and Ukraine, creating a kind of visual map of the political and social issues that run through his work. Instead of presenting originals, the space focuses on scale, staging and the contextualisation of the images, bringing the public closer to a language born in the street and marked by satire, denunciation and contrast. In Lisbon, the Museu Banksy acts as an entry point into an artistic universe that is recognisable, provocative and deliberately uncomfortable.

Museum • Lisboa, Lisboa

The Ricardo do Espírito Santo Silva Foundation occupies the Azurara Palace, in Largo das Portas do Sol, Lisbon. Created in 1953 by the banker and collector Ricardo do Espírito Santo Silva, it began as a Museum-School of Decorative Arts, based on the donation of the palace and a collection assembled by its founder. The building, classified as a Property of Public Interest, is a palace with a 17th-century character and was once home to noble families, having belonged to the Viscount of Azurara in the late 18th century. Inside, the Museum of Portuguese Decorative Arts guides visitors through decorative arts from the 15th to the 18th century, with sections devoted to furniture, textiles, silverware, Chinese porcelain, Portuguese faience, tiles, painting, sculpture and bookbinding. The foundation also maintains arts and crafts workshops, training, and conservation and restoration, preserving traditional techniques through transmission between masters, trainers and apprentices.

Museum • Lisboa, Lisboa

The Museu de Lisboa - Santo António stands in the historic centre, beside the church dedicated to the saint and close to the Cathedral. It is one of the five sites of the Museu de Lisboa and focuses on Saint Anthony, who was born in the city and lived here until the age of 20. The exhibition presents his relationship with Lisbon through iconography, devotion, popular traditions and the festivities that grew around him. Along the route, it becomes clear how the saint’s image was built over the centuries: the Franciscan preacher, the miracle-worker, the familiar presence in domestic devotions and in the celebrations of June. The museum includes a long-term exhibition area and a documentation centre. Small in scale, but dense in meaning, it brings together religious history, urban memory and popular culture around one of the most present figures in Lisbon’s imagination.

Archaeological Site • Lisboa, Lisboa

The Museu de Lisboa - Teatro Romano reveals, on the slope of São Jorge Castle, one of the great remains of ancient Felicitas Iulia Olisipo. The theatre was built in the time of Emperor Augustus and remodelled in AD 57, during Nero’s rule. It is estimated to have held around four thousand spectators, a sign of the public importance of performances in the Roman city. Abandoned in the 4th century, it remained buried until 1798, when the ruins emerged during the reconstruction of Lisbon after the 1755 Earthquake. Only in the second half of the 20th century did the monument begin to be studied again through systematic archaeological campaigns. The present route brings together an exhibition area, an archaeological field and the ruins of the theatre, where parts of the orchestra, seating, stage front and stage can still be recognised. Between excavated stone and the urban fabric, the museum reveals a Lisbon older than the city’s own medieval memory.

Museum • Lisboa, Lisboa

The Museu Benfica - Cosme Damião stands beside Estádio da Luz, in Lisbon, and turns the history of Sport Lisboa e Benfica into a large-scale museum route. Inaugurated in 2013, it was named after Cosme Damião, a central figure in the club’s history and often presented as its “father”. The exhibition links Benfica memory with the history of Lisbon, Portugal and the world, creating a broader setting for trophies, names, facts and images. With around 4,000 square metres, spread over three floors, the museum is organised into 29 thematic areas and uses interactivity and technology as an essential part of the visit. Around a thousand pieces from the club’s collection are on display. More than a gallery of victories, the museum shows how sport, collective identity and urban memory can meet in the same space.

Museum • Lisboa, Lisboa

The 3D Fun Art Museum in Lisbon offers a light and participatory way of looking at images. The space brings together around 40 scenarios with 3D images and optical illusions, combining the science of visual perception with the play of illusion. Here, the artwork does not remain only in front of those who observe it: it asks for presence, movement and framing. The compositions are designed to integrate the body into the scene and turn photography into an essential part of the experience. Between trick-art paintings, illusion rooms and games of scale, unexpected situations appear, such as entering Van Gogh’s world, taking part in a safari or living alongside a dinosaur. The result is a contemporary and accessible museum, where perspective, depth and imagination meet in a sequence of images built in the moment.

Museum • Lisboa, Lisboa

MUDE — Design Museum, in Lisbon, occupies a building that preserves the memory of the former headquarters of Banco Nacional Ultramarino. Today, that financial past coexists with a museum dedicated to the many expressions of design. The building itself is treated as a living archive: its movable and integrated heritage forms part of the collection, and its architectural evolution is understood as material to be read. The collection brings together documentary and museum inventory entries organised into areas such as graphic design, fashion, contemporary jewellery, product, editorial and stage design. The long-term exhibition “What are things for? Pieces from the MUDE Collection 1900-2020” proposes looking at design not only as form, but as process, use, communication and consumption. Between the display depot, specialised library and exhibition spaces, MUDE shows how objects also tell the history of ideas.

Museum • Lisboa, Lisboa

MACAM — Armando Martins Contemporary Art Museum, in Lisbon, makes public the private collection assembled by Armando Martins over five decades. Opened to the public on 22 March 2025, it occupies the former Palace of the Counts of Vila Franca, later Counts of Ribeira Grande, a building with origins in the early 18th century. The history of the site remains legible in the long façade, the former chapel, the noble staircase and the traces recovered during the rehabilitation. The collection, begun in 1974, brings together more than 600 works, from the late 19th century to the present day, spanning painting, sculpture, drawing, photography, video and installation. The route places modern Portuguese art in dialogue with national and international contemporary creation. Between palace, museum and hotel, MACAM presents the private collection as public matter, open to observation and conversation.

Interpretive Center • Lisboa, Lisboa

The Codfish History Interpretation Centre, in Lisbon, turns an everyday food into a theme of maritime and cultural memory. The exhibition presents cod as a symbol of Portuguese gastronomy, but also as the result of long voyages, hard work and Atlantic connections. The route is organised into two major sections, “The Sea” and “At the Table”, and combines images, films, animations and interactive experiences. In the rooms dedicated to the fishing saga appear the luggers, the dories, the White Fleet and life on board, including campaigns that could last around six months. The narrative also passes through the propaganda of the Estado Novo and the place of cod on the Portuguese table. In the end, “Cod 20.20” opens a reflection on marine resources, climate change and the future of fishing, showing that this history is still changing.

Museum • Lisboa, Lisboa

The Health Museum, in Lisbon, belongs to the National Institute of Health Doutor Ricardo Jorge and gives museological form to the memory of health in Portugal. Created by the Ministry of Health in 2007, it has been presented since April 2017 in the former Neurosurgery Service of Santo António dos Capuchos Hospital, with the exhibition “800 Years of Health in Portugal”. The route follows the history of health from the foundation of the nation to the creation of the National Health Service, bringing together around 400 pieces from its collections and from partner institutions. The narrative moves through the first medieval services, royal hospitals, pharmacopoeia, health policies, technical and scientific innovations and the fight against endemic diseases. The museum also preserves collections linked to tuberculosis, malaria, urology, psychology and anaesthesia, showing how science, care and heritage intersect in collective life.