MAC CCB

The Centro Cultural de Belém was built in 1992 for Portugal's EU presidency, a large block of pink Lioz limestone by Vittorio Gregotti and Manuel Salgado that was heavily criticised on completion for its scale beside the Jerónimos monastery. Its art museum opened in 2007 around the collection of José Berardo, a Madeiran businessman, and covered twentieth-century movements broadly - surrealism, pop, minimalism, conceptual art, with Picasso, Warhol, Bacon, Lichtenstein, Duchamp and Portuguese artists including Paula Rego and Helena Almeida. That arrangement ended in disputes over ownership and debt, Berardo's assets were seized in 2021 and 2022, and the museum was reconstituted under state control as MAC CCB in 2023. What is on display has changed accordingly, and the permanent hang is being reworked, so checking the current programme before travelling is worth doing.

What you actually see

• The twentieth-century survey - surrealism through pop and conceptual art.
• The Portuguese holdings - Rego, Helena Almeida and others alongside the international names.
• The CCB building - Gregotti and Salgado's 1992 limestone block beside the monastery.
• The reconstitution - a collection taken into state hands and rehung from 2023.

When to go

Year-round. Two hours. Closed Mondays. Check the current display - the collection and hang have been in flux since the ownership change.

Honest expectations

What is on show has changed substantially since the Berardo arrangement ended, and older guidebooks are out of date. The CCB is a large complex and the museum is one part of it. Belém is crowded. Some galleries close between rehangs.

Nearby

The Jerónimos monastery is across the square; MAAT is along the river.