MAAT Museum Lisbon

Central Tejo, 1908–1975

The brick building with the chimneys is the Tejo power station, built from 1908 and enlarged through the 1920s and 1930s to burn coal landed from barges on the river and light Lisbon; it ran until 1975. EDP, the national electricity company, turned it into the Electricity Museum in 1990 and kept the machinery in place: the boiler hall with its steel boilers three storeys high, the turbine room, the coal conveyors, the control desk with its dials. It is one of the best preserved industrial interiors in the country and the part of MAAT that children remember.

Since 2016 it has held the technology half of the programme and the larger touring exhibitions alongside the machines.

The 2016 building: Amanda Levete's tiled roof

The low white building beside it is by the London studio of Amanda Levete, opened on 5 October 2016 (the programme had started in the power station on 30 June). It is clad in about fifteen thousand three-dimensional white ceramic tiles that throw the light off the river back at it, and its roof is a public ramp that rises from the riverside path over the galleries and down to the water on the far side: you can walk over the museum without entering it, and the roof at sunset, with the 25 de Abril bridge upstream and the Cristo Rei across the river, is why the building is photographed more than any exhibition it has held. The galleries inside are below ground level — the Oval Gallery under the roof is the large one, built for a single commissioned installation at a time.

Buy at the desk of whichever building you reach first; the ticket is for both and the garden between them is open. In the Levete building the Oval Gallery holds one large installation at a time and the smaller galleries hold two or three shows, usually one of them from the EDP Foundation's own collection of Portuguese art since the 1960s; what is on changes several times a year and is listed on maat.pt. In the power station the permanent machinery is the constant and the temporary exhibitions occupy the halls between the boilers. Allow an hour and a half for both, twenty minutes for the roof alone, and go up the roof last, from the river side, so the walk ends with the view. There is a café-restaurant on the ground floor of the new building and a shop.

Is MAAT worth visiting? For the power station and the roof, yes for anyone; for the contemporary programme, it depends on the show, and the site lists it. If you have one afternoon in Belém and no interest in contemporary art, walk the roof, look through the power station's windows at the boilers, and spend the ticket money on the Coach Museum.

The lead-in names the source; the table is the fare card. The first-Sunday rule is the one to read twice: it is free for residents in Portugal between 10:00 and 13:00, and the page does not extend it to visitors — the same pattern as the state museums since 1 August 2024. The Lisboa Card list of included entries does not name MAAT; we checked the card's page, not the museum's, and print it as our reading.

Wednesday to Monday 10:00–19:00. Closed every Tuesday and on 1 January, 1 May and 25 December; on 24 and 31 December the museum closes at 15:00. Read on maat.pt on 29 August 2026.

The Tuesday is the trap for a Belém plan: the state monuments close on Monday, MAAT on Tuesday, so neither day gives you the whole riverfront, and Wednesday to Sunday do. The happy-hour fare, printed for Thursday and Friday evenings from 19:00 to 21:00, sits after the printed closing time; we report both as the site prints them and cannot say from the page which one governs a Thursday evening outside the July–August window. The Monday closures page lists Belém's Monday and Tuesday pattern together.

MAAT is the easternmost of the Belém sights, on the river side of Avenida Brasília a kilometre before the monastery. Tram 15E from Praça da Figueira or Cais do Sodré has a stop named Altinho (MAAT) on the Carris timetable; €3.30 onboard, €1.72 with zapping, covered by the €7.25 day ticket. From Belém station on the CP Cascais line it is a ten-minute walk east along the water; from the Coach Museum eight minutes; from the Monument to the Discoveries fifteen.

Cross from the landward side by the footbridge over the railway near the power station. The getting around page explains the fares; the Belém page has the route on a map.

At the end of Belém, not the start. Do the monastery, the pastries and the tower in the morning, walk east along the river past the Monument to the Discoveries and the Coach Museum, and reach MAAT by 16:00 so the visit ends on the roof in the last light; tram 15E from the Altinho stop takes you back to the centre. On a Monday, MAAT and the monument are what Belém has open, so start here instead.

On a Tuesday it is shut. The Belém page places it on the map with walking minutes; the rainy day page ranks the power station among the city's dry hours.