Stuart Forster heads to Portugal and explains what to expect at the Serralves Museum Porto, which offers contemporary art and more.
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People from the Portuguese city of Porto are proud of their city’s industrial heritage and reputation for labouring long hours. After a hard week’s work, you’ll see some of them strolling in the Serralves Foundation’s park. Four kilometres west of the city centre, it’s an institution with a range of cultural offerings.
The Serralves Foundation was established in 1989. Within a relatively short space of time, it became recognised as one of Portugal’s leading cultural and contemporary art institutions.
Museum of Contemporary Art
The Serralves Museu de Arte Contemporânea, the ‘Museum of Contemporary Art’ when translated into English, hosts frequently changing temporary exhibitions. If you are going to Porto and want to find out what will be shown while you are in the city then check the listings on the Serralves Foundation’s website.
If you happen to be visiting while the exhibitions are being changed, you can still pop into the park, museum shop and cafe. The gardens, which were landscaped by Joao Gomes da Silva, are a good place to appreciate the sleek white facade of the museum. It was built between 1997 and 1999 to a design by the architect Alvaro Siza Vieira.
The House of Serralves
Past Claes Oldenburg’s huge red trowel sculpture, you’ll see the Casa de Serralves, the House of Serralves. The pink Art Deco villa is has a formal garden, complete with water features and fountains reminiscent of those seen in Iberia during the Moorish era.
If you drop down the path towards the pond, it’s like stepping through an invisible portal and being teleported into the countryside. You can wander by pastoral farmland where cows chew the cud. It’s a serene environment as traffic noise fails to penetrate the rolling landscape and woodland.
It’s easy enough to explore on your own. But if you’d prefer, guided tours of the Serralves museum and park are offered in English on Sundays at 4.00 pm. They last approximately an hour. English language tours of the museum’s exhibits take place on Saturdays, also at 4.00 pm. If you have a ticket to the museum you won’t have to pay anything extra to join a tour.
Serralves Museum Porto
The Serralves Foundation also organises cultural events, including musical concerts, dancing and film screenings. Again, it’s worth taking a look at the foundation’s website for listings.
During the summer, jazz concerts are hosted in the park. If that’s your thing, look out for posters and flyers mentioning Jazz no Parque, meaning ‘Jazz in the Park’.
The museum itself is a joy to visit. The design is spacious and attractive in its own right. It has 14 exhibition rooms over three storeys. Works by domestic and international artists are shown in the Serralves Museum.
For anyone who doesn’t know the city, and the location of bus stops for lines 201, 203, 502 or 504, arriving at the Serralves Foundation by public transport can prove tricky. Unfortunately, none of the city’s Metro lines run here. Taking a taxi to the museum is a viable option if you a pressed for time.
Map of the Serralves Museum Porto
The map below shows the location of the Serralves Museum Porto:
Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art
See the Serralves website for details about opening times, entry fees and exhibitions.
Hotels in Porto
Search for accommodation in Porto on the website below:
Books about Porto and Portugal
Looking for reading material with local relevance ahead of visiting Porto? The following books are available from Amazon:
DK Top 10 Porto.
Further Information
See the Visit Porto website for information about things to do and see in the city..
Thank you for visiting Go Eat Do and reading this post about the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art in Porto, Portugal. If you are planning to spend time in the countryl, you may also be interested in this post about fashion in Portugal.
Stuart Forster, the author and photographer of this post, is an award-winning travel writer. He is a contributor to The Rough Guide to the 100 Best Islands in the World.
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A version of this post about the Serralves Museum Porto was initially published on Go Eat Don on 27 February 2014.
