Planned by the architect Siza Vieira, the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art is the first project of its kind in Portugal and also a major multi-disciplinary centre of culture in the North of the country. Unique in its architectural sobriety and natural setting, the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art is currently the most visited paid-entry museum in Portugal, where temporary exhibits of the most important national and foreign artists are shown, as it is part of the principal tours of contemporary art.
The Museum is the angular stone of the Foundation Serralves, whose mission is to sensitise the public to contemporary art and the environment. Located in the heart of Porto, the Foundation Serralves is set in a property created by Carlos Alberto Cabral (Count of Vizela), during the period from the1920s to 1940s, uniting in a single space a Museum of Contemporary Art, a park, and an Art Deco house, together with spaces for leisure, a shop, bookstore, restaurant and Tea House.