Serralves Foundation

The Serralves Foundation's mission is to stimulate the interest and knowledge of audiences of different origins and ages in Contemporary Art, Architecture, Cinema, Landscape, Environment and in critical issues for society and its future, in an integrated manner based on a set of exceptional assets, in which the Museum of Contemporary Art, the House, the Park and the Manoel de Oliveira Film House stand out.

Visiting the Museum is always more than visiting its exhibitions. It is also discovering the particularities of each space that makes up this architectural work, with a strong organisational structure and a great flexibility and capacity for transformation that responds to the diversity and unpredictability of the contemporary art that is exhibited here.

The architectural plans for the Serralves Museum were first drawn up in 1991 by the architect Alvaro Siza. The new building was finally inaugurated in 1999, harmoniously integrated within the surrounding urban area and the pre-existing spaces of the gardens of the Park and Villa.

The Serralves Foundation currently holds over 4300 works in its collection, of which more than 1700 belong to Serralves with a further 2600 works from various private and public collections on long-term deposit. 

The focus of the Serralves Collection is contemporary art produced from the 1960s to the present day. Art produced before 1960 may also be considered in relation to its relevance to the Collection and artists represented therein. 

Serralves Library, open to the public since 2001, specialised in post-1960 contemporary art in its various manifestations - visual arts, performing arts, architecture, music - and different approaches - art theory and history, cultural policies, collecting, fairs and biennials, competitions and cultural education - with special emphasis on the themes and artists presented in the Museum's programme and represented in the Serralves Collection.

The Casa do Cinema Manoel de Oliveira, project by Álvaro Siza is a new centre of excellence for the cinema and the moving image, integrated within the spaces of the Serralves Foundation.

In addition to a permanent exhibition, a documentation centre and film screenings that provide regular access to Manoel de Oliveira's oeuvre, the Casa do Cinema will present a programme of temporary exhibitions, thematic and monographic film series, retrospective, conferences,  publications and educational programmes, through which it promotes different ways to approach contemporary cinema, within a broad reflection on the art of our epoch.

A visit to the Park, via any of its circuits, involving different routes and durations, is a privileged opportunity to come into contact with nature and appreciate the wide diversity of trees and shrubs, constituted by roughly 200 species and a variety of autochthonous and ornamental exotic plants. 

In addition, the gardens and the park also constitute a museum setting: visitors to the park will encounter sculptures from the Serralves Collection that are permanently on display.