Parque de Serralves, Porto

Parque de Serralves extends across eighteen hectares, so the landscape is as central here as the art indoors. The park surrounds the Museum of Contemporary Art, designed by Álvaro Siza Vieira. Along the paths, contemporary artworks sit among vegetation characteristic of northern Portugal, including oaks, birches and yews.

This is a landscape assembled in layers over more than a century. In 1932, Count of Vizela commissioned Jacques Gréber to design the garden for the Serralves Villa; the grounds also retain elements of a nineteenth-century garden and the Quinta do Mata-Sete estate. Since September 2019, the park has included a wooden Treetop Walk, a 260-metre route that rises from one and a half to fifteen metres among the trees.

Carlos Castanheira designed it with Siza Vieira. The museum opened in 1999, giving Porto a dedicated home for contemporary art. Serralves brings together that museum, the park and the villa, and the whole ensemble became a National Monument in 2012. The museum is now Portugal’s second most visited, receiving almost one million visitors a year.