May will be a good
month for culture in Lisbon: on the 8th
May, the new Orient Museum will open its doors
to the public, offering a testimony of the historical relations between Portugal and Asia right on the
Portuguese capital’s riverside. It will be one of the best places to enjoy
Asian art in Europe.
The museum is in ward
to the Portuguese Orient Foundation and its collection was initiated
right after the foundation was created reuniting Chinese, indo-Portuguese,
Japanese and Timorese objects with the Asian popular art collection Kwok On,
with 13 thousand items, many of them rare.
A modernist building,
designed in the 1930’s by the architect João Simões and destined to preserve
codfish and store fresh fruit, was
readapted by João Luís Carrillho’s architecture atelier to install the museum, that
will have seven storeys and an area of 15.500 square meters. Between the
building, repairs and furniture about 30 million euros were expended to make it
a reality. On an annual basis, it will dispose of an amount variable from three
to four million euros.
According to the head
of the museum’s cultural services, João Calvão, in interview to Público, the Orient Museum “is, in fact, a
cultural center”. It comprises three different exhibition spaces, an auditorium
(with specific programming) with 360 places, a center for meetings, seminars
and scientific reunions, a documentation center, an educative service and a
restaurant that will serve food from all Asian countries.
Besides its rich
permanent and temporary exhibitions, the Orient Museum will host music,
theater and dance shows, cinema cycles, workshops, conferences and debates. The
programming is organized in thematic cycles, intercrossing, for instance,
cinema with exhibitions.
Sources: Público, RTP,
Diário de Notícias
For more information click here