The Money Museum

Standing where the former Church of São Julião was, in Baixa Pombalina, the museum finishes off a block next to the City Council. Its ecclesiastic shape is marked on the interior by its verticality, and stands out from the surrounding urban landscape outside. As a church unusually transformed into a money museum, this space shows a spatial, material, and now also functional exuberance, resulting from its new cultural use. The group of buildings has belonged to Banco de Portugal since the 1930s, and the church area was desacralised and converted into service facilities. After the rehabilitation and restoration, carried out between 2009 and 2012, the church became a cultural space, open to the community. The new museum, which displays its collection in several exhibition areas with interactive technology, organises temporary exhibitions alongside the D. Dinis Wall Interpretation Centre.