Museu do Fado, Lisbon

Museu do Fado is a museum devoted to Lisbon’s fado music, housed in a former water-pumping station. The building began life in 1868, and two steam engines were installed there in 1869 to drive its machinery; the pumping station remained in service until 1938. Afterward, the building became a workshop and later accommodated the Portuguese Communist Party before its restoration and enlargement for the museum.

The museum opened on 25 September 1998. Inside, the permanent exhibition brings together paintings, instruments, records, sheet music, films and biographies connected with fado. Among its notable works are José Malhoa’s O Fado and Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro’s Os fadistas, painted in 1873. Since 2016, the museum has also provided an online sound archive containing thousands of recordings from the beginning of the 20th century, searchable by performer or repertoire.