Museu do Oriente (Museum of the Orient)

Originally named Pedro Álvares Cabral Bulding, this port edifice from the 1940s was for most of its existence a warehouse to store codfish. Later on, it was adapted to become a museum that stores a valuable collection of art works centred in a common subject: the Orient. A striking example of the Estado Novo iconography, its longitudinal and symmetric organization has, as an axis, a tall central body, flanked by two volumes of lower height. Its impressive scale and volume are enhanced by the sense of unity that characterizes the building. The façade’s simplicity is interrupted by two bas-reliefs by sculptor Barata Feyo. The need to adapt the space to its use as a museum was the origin of this intervention, which tried to balance the building’s architectonic identity with its new functions. The intervention was centred in the redefinition of the vertical access ways of the circuits for the public and the staff, in the distribution of the exhibition spaces and the definition of new openings for the entry of light.