It’s a must: you have to visit some (or all) of these exhibitions in Lisbon. The city continues to host some of the most fantastic art exhibitions, and we’ll be here to tell you all about it.
The city already has a number of exhibitions planned for the coming years, many of them taking place in the city’s main museums, such as the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga or the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian and the renovated CAM – Centro de Arte Moderna.
Most of the exhibitions in Lisbon that we’re going to present here are permanent exhibitions, mainly of contemporary art.
You can find all the other temporary exhibitions taking place in Lisbon in this article, which is updated every week.
We’ll also take you to the main art galleries and independent exhibition spaces that usually invite local and international artists to show their work.
Whatever your interest, there will always be an exhibition that appeals to you!
Table Of Contents
- This is what Lisbon looked like before the 1755 earthquake
- Lisboa Story Center
- Amália Rodrigues House-Museum
- 3 exhibitions in one place
- At CAM until 2026
- The "giant squid" of the Vasco da Gama Aquarium
- Various exhibitions at the Marine Museum
- Pharmacy in Space
- Portuguese presence in Asia
- The Electricity Factory
- Banksy Museum
- Berardo Collection
This is what Lisbon looked like before the 1755 earthquake
The “Maqueta de Lisboa antes ao Terramoto de 1755” is a detailed model of how Lisbon looked before the catastrophic earth quake of 1755.
Created by historian Gustavo de Matos Sequeira, it was assembled in two phases between 1945 and 1959 and is currently on display at the Lisbon Museum – Palácio Pimenta, in Campo Grande.
This large-scale model offers a multimedia representation of Lisbon’s urban landscape before the great natural disaster, capturing its architectural and cultural richness at the time.
Address: Campo Grande 245 (Palácio Pimenta)
Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. (last entry at 5:30 p.m.)
Tickets: €3, with access to the entire Museum of Lisbon – Palácio Pimenta
Lisboa Story Center
With more and more visitors every year, the Lisboa Story Center, located in the heart of Praça do Comércio, was one of the most recent spaces we visited.
Through an audio guide and various multimedia supports (some of which are immersive, such as the aromas of spices in one of the areas), it shows how Lisbon was “born” and grew over time, in 17 chapters (lasting around 60 minutes) with the main focus on the 1755 earthquake and the subsequent reconstruction of the city, which made it one of the most modern in Europe at the time of those events.
Address: Terreiro do Paço 78-81 (Baixa)
Opening hours: every day from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. (last entry at 6 p.m.)
Tickets: from €3.50 on the website
Amália Rodrigues House-Museum
You’ll only get to know Amália Rodrigues better if you know how she lived. And on this visit to her House-Museum, you’ll find out everything.
In this permanent exhibition in Lisbon, at the home of the greatest fado singer of all time, you’ll find out what Amália’s day-to-day life was like, see the objects she wore, her clothes, her jewelry and the leisure spaces where she often spent her evenings with friends, singing until her voice hurt.
Address: Rua de São Bento 193 (São Bento/Rato)
Opening times: Tuesday to Sunday (various sessions)
Tickets: at Fever
3 exhibitions in one place
Of all the exhibitions we visited, this installation is one of the most profound in Lisbon, and will take you on a journey of intense relaxation, introspection and harmony.
At least that was the intention of artist Maya de Almeida Araújo when she dived into the depths of the immense blue of our Atlantic Ocean.
It took eight months of filming, which you can now admire in the Oceanário de Lisboa atrium. If you like the sea, this exhibition is for you.
Once here, take the opportunity to visit the Oceanário’s other exhibitions: the Submerged Forests and, of course, the large aquarium.
Address: Oceanário de Lisboa (Parque das Nações)
Opening hours: every day from 10am to 7pm (no closing date)
Tickets: for all 3 exhibitions on the website
At CAM until 2026
CAM – Centro de Arte Moderna da Gulbenkian recently reopened with an additional 900m2 of exhibition space , and with the fantastic “Engawa” canopy that embellishes the entire new space and creates a more natural connection between the interior and the also renovated garden of this well-known artistic hub in the capital.
Despite not mentioning any permanent exhibitions, in the renovated spaces you’ll find the Centro de Arte Moderna’s huge collection of more than 12,000 pieces of art, which you can visit in two different rooms: Linha de Maré, which has several works from the CAM Collection; and a unique space where you can visit the pieces that have been in reserve for the longest time, called Reservas Visitáveis (Visitable Reserves).
Address: Rua Marquês de Fronteira 2 (Praça de Espanha)
Opening hours: Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Tickets: free until October 7th (collect your ticket on the day of the visit)
The “giant squid” of the Vasco da Gama Aquarium
The Vasco da Gama Aquarium is not only an aquarium, but also a museum that originated from a prince’s dream and his ambition to learn more about the depths of the ocean.
The idea here is to “dive” into one of the oldest aquarium-museums in the world, to discover a historical heritage with a private oceanographic collection belonging to King Carlos I. If you’ve been there on school trips, do you still remember the famous “giant squid”?
Address: Rua Direita do Dafundo (Cruz Quebrada)
Opening hours: every day from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Tickets: adults for €5; children aged 4 to 12 and seniors +65 for €2.5, on sale at Fever
Various exhibitions at the Marine Museum
The Marine Museum is right next to the Jerónimos Monastery in Belém and is a unique opportunity to discover a place full of the history of Portuguese navigators.
Here you can see the permanent exhibition, which presents the evolution of the Merchant Navy from the great feats of the Discoveries to the present day.
You can also admire ship models, maritime instruments and impressive replicas of real ships.
This is also where you can watch the famous Candlelight concerts.
Address: Praça do Império (next to the Jerónimos Monastery in Belém)
Opening hours: every day from 10am to 5pm
Tickets: adults for €7; children aged 4 to 12 and seniors +65 for €3.5, on sale at Fever
Pharmacy in Space
In this exhibition at the Pharmacy Museum you’ll learn about the portable pharmacies used on the Space Shuttle Endeavour on the last journey of the millennium, in December 2000.
You’ll also be able to find out a lot of interesting facts, such as what was the first medicine to be administered in space, or what each emergency kit contained on each of the trips into space.
Address: Pharmacy Museum at Rua Marechal Saldanha 1 (Chiado)
Opening hours: Monday to Friday from 10am to 6pm; Saturday from 10am to 1pm and 2pm to 6pm
Tickets: at Fever
Portuguese presence in Asia
The permanent exhibition at the Museu do Oriente, “Portuguese Presence in Asia”, displays more than 2,000 artistic and documentary objects.
These objects include furniture, ivories, textiles, sacred art, porcelain, paintings, sculpture and graphic documents, and the pieces are organized by countries such as India, Sri Lanka, China, Macau, Japan, Korea and East Timor.
The collection reflects the West’s fascination with the East and the practice of collecting as a means of building and sharing knowledge.
Address: Avenida Brasília (Museu do Oriente, at Doca de Alcantara, North)
Opening times: various
Tickets: 8€, on the website
The Electricity Factory
Before the MAAT was built, the Lisbon Power Station, better known as the Electricity Museum or the Tejo Power Station, was the landmark of the Belém riverside area.
Today you can visit this incredible and iconic building and learn all about its history and how it was once responsible for the entire electricity supply to Lisbon’s capital.
Address: Avenida Brasília (Belém)
Opening hours: Wednesday to Monday, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Tickets: from €8, on the website
Telling stories through puppets
In the Madragoa neighborhood you’ll find a space that allows you to travel the world through the history of puppets, in a museum that deserves to be visited, regardless of age.
It is the first museum in Portugal totally dedicated to the interpretation and dissemination of the history of puppets, as well as the dissemination of this type of theater, and you can visit its permanent exhibition, which tells the whole story of this artistic format.
Address: Rua da Esperança 146, Convento das Bernardas (Santos)
Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday, between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. (last entry at 5:30 p.m.)
Tickets: adults 5€; 13 to 25 year olds (non-Lisbon residents) 2.5€; over 65s 4.3€, on the website
Banksy Museum
The exhibition at the Banksy Museum” is an unprecedented immersive experience, showing more than 100 works by this mysterious street artist.
A space has been created to offer you an incredible and very dynamic experience, as if you were taking a journey through the streets where the artist left his work, all over the world.
Address: Rua Viriato 25 (Picoas)
Opening hours: weekdays from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.; weekends from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Tickets: on the website
Berardo Collection
The famous Berardo Collection is available to visit at the new MAC-CCB, the new abbreviation for Museum of Contemporary Art Centro Cultural de Belém, which in 2023 began occupying the space of the former Berardo Museum.
The Berardo Collection brings together a number of remarkable and significant works from certain moments in the history of 20th century art, including creations by some of the great masters such as Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, Amadeo Souza-Cardoso, Marcel Duchamp and Francis Picabia, among many others.
Address: Praça do Império (CCB – Centro Cultural de Belém)
Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 6.30 p.m. (last entry at 6 p.m.)
Tickets: on the website; free admission every Sunday until 2pm, for residents of Portugal
