Museums and Palaces

The headquarters of the Museu de Lisboa (Museum of Lisbon) is housed in a summer palace dating from the first half of the 18th century, framed by what remains of an old manor house. The Museum of Lisbon - Pimenta Palace shows the evolution of the city from prehistoric times to the end of the 20th century.

The Pimenta Palace was built between 1739 and 1746 for Diogo de Sousa Mexia, a prominent figure during the reigns of King João V and King José. This manor house was named after Manuel Joaquim Pimenta de Carvalho, one of its owners. In 1914, Jorge Lobo de Ávila Graça bought the palace and submitted it to a major remodelling. The renovation works reinterpreted the 18th-century aesthetic and adapted the palace to the needs of everyday life.

In 1962, the Lisbon City Council acquired the property and renovated its building and gardens, following a Raul Lino’s design that was never completed. The then-called Museum of the City, which had been operating in Mitra Palace since 1942, moved into the palace. After being adapted to a museum, with a project by the architect Duarte Nuno Simões and a programme developed by Lisbon studies scholar Irisalva Moita, the upper floor of the new museum was inaugurated in May 1979. The ground floor exhibition rooms opened between 1982 and 1985. Irisalva Moita’s plan offered a chronological overview of the city based on the museum’s collection. It foresaw the need for the construction of a new building in the garden, to be called the Museum Galleries. The project was later reduced to two pavilions: the Black Pavilion, inaugurated in 1994, designed by architect Pedro Fezas Vital, and the White Pavilion, which opened to the public as a contemporary art gallery the following year, designed by architect Daniela Ermano.

In 2015, the old Museum of the City, based in Pimenta Palace, became the headquarters of the Museu de Lisboa, an institution composed of five museum sites. The knowledge earned with new excavations, acquisitions, and research propelled the remodelling of the Museu de Lisboa - Palácio Pimenta’s long-term exhibition. The renovation process, which consisted of updating content and devices, and designing a consistent programme of temporary exhibitions, resulted in the reopening of the ground floor in 2021 and the first floor in 2024.