Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art
Álvaro Siza's contemporary art museum set in an eighteen-hectare park with an Art Deco villa.
The Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art opened in 1999 in the grounds of a 1930s estate in western Porto, and is run by the Fundação de Serralves, set up in 1989. Designed by Álvaro Siza Vieira, who grew up nearby, the long, low building of white render and granite arranges its galleries along two wings around a courtyard, lit mainly from above. The collection concentrates on art made since 1960, with particular depth in Portuguese work.
The museum stands within an eighteen-hectare park of formal terraces, woodland, lawns and a working farm, laid out around the Art Deco Casa de Serralves. Other buildings on the estate include the Álvaro Siza Wing, opened in 2019, the House of Cinema Manoel de Oliveira, which holds the director's archive, and a raised treetop walkway. One ticket covers museum, villa, park and cinema house, and the exhibition programme changes several times each year.
Highlights
- Long white gallery building designed by Álvaro Siza Vieira
- Eighteen-hectare park with formal gardens, woodland and a treetop walk
- Art Deco Casa de Serralves, the estate's 1930s pink villa
- House of Cinema Manoel de Oliveira, holding the director's archive
