In October 2026, MAAT – Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology celebrates ten years of activity. Located on the Belém waterfront in Lisbon, the museum has developed a programme throughout its first decade that brings together artistic practices, critical thought, and different fields of knowledge.
Since opening in 2016, MAAT has presented more than 155 exhibitions and the work of over one thousand Portuguese and international artists. Its programme has brought together different generations, geographies, and artistic languages, combining projects by emerging artists with exhibitions devoted to established figures.
Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Jeff Wall, William Klein, Joana Vasconcelos, Grada Kilomba, Ernesto Neto, Carlos Bunga, Carsten Höller, Tomás Saraceno, Luisa Cunha, Jonathas de Andrade, and Anthony McCall are among the artists who have contributed to this history. Rather than forming a succession of exhibitions, these projects have helped define a space for research and debate around some of the questions shaping the present.
Working at the intersection of art, architecture, and technology, MAAT’s programme has explored subjects including identity, community, migration, borders, memory, violence, inequality, ecology, sustainability, and urban culture. It has also responded to the transformations brought about by contemporary technologies, examining their effects on human experience, social relations, and the imagination of the future.
Exhibitions, conversations, performances, workshops, publications, and collaborative projects have extended these lines of enquiry, bringing artists, curators, researchers, and different audiences into dialogue. Within this context, the museum operates not only as an exhibition venue but also as a space where knowledge can be produced, shared, and questioned.
MAAT’s identity is inseparable from its location. The campus brings together Central Tejo, an early twentieth-century industrial building, the contemporary museum designed by AL_A, led by Amanda Levete, and a garden facing the Tagus. The coexistence of these architectures establishes a relationship between industrial heritage, contemporary creation, and public space, situating the museum within Lisbon’s cultural and urban landscape.
Over the past ten years, MAAT has sought to remain open to experimentation, to a plurality of perspectives, and to the tensions of the present. This anniversary is therefore less a point of arrival than an opportunity to consider the path taken and to renew the questions that will guide the institution’s future.
As it celebrates its first decade, MAAT extends its thanks to all the artists, curators, authors, and cultural institutions with whom it has collaborated, as well as to the press, partners, and visitors who have contributed to this journey. The museum’s first ten years are also a history of these relationships, encounters, and forms of collaboration.
On view
VENUS—Valentino Garavani through the eyes of Joana Vasconcelos establishes a dialogue between the creative worlds of Valentino Garavani and Joana Vasconcelos, bringing together art, fashion, craft, and material culture.
João Pimenta Gomes: New Age reveals a dynamic of cross-contamination between the visual arts and music, with the polyphony of a chrome choir in a delicate symphony of reverberations.
Pedro Cabrita Reis: without sorrow of heart presents a vast collection of paintings, drawings, and sculptures, created specifically for this exhibition. Comprising nearly two hundred previously unseen works, this exhibition consolidates the artist's investigations and deepens his connection with the great themes and masters of post-Renaissance art.
Turn around. A look at the EDP Foundation Art Collection presents Around 90 works by 58 major figures of Portuguese contemporary art are featured in this exhibition, forming one of the most significant presentations of an institutional collection central to the history of contemporary Portuguese art, from the 1960s to the present.
Exhibiting, Publishing: MAAT in Print (2016–2026) revisits the museum’s publishing activity through a selection of more than 300 publications. The exhibition considers publishing both as an extension of exhibition-making and as an autonomous space for documentation, interpretation, and the circulation of knowledge.
