LISBON.- The EDP Foundation today announced that it will open MAAT, a new Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology for Lisbon, on the 4-5 of October 2016. The new museum will become the centrepiece of one of the Portuguese capital’s most popular cultural areas, the historic riverside district of Belém.

The announcement was made before 150 invited guests from the world of art and culture at the ARCOmadrid art fair, at a lunch hosted by the Embassy of Portugal in Spain and the newly appointed director of the museum, the Portuguese architect, writer and curator Pedro Gadanho.

A new kunsthall building designed by AL_A, the internationally renowned architecture practice headed by Amanda Levete, will open to the public on 4-5 October 2016 with the exhibition UTOPIA/DYSTOPIA, PART 1: Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster.

MAAT will focus on contemporary culture through a combination of visual arts and media, architecture and city, technology and science, society and thought.

Pedro Gadanho, Director of MAAT said: "In conjunction with the existing Central Tejo power station, the new MAAT will offer a unique venue exploring the contemporary intersections of art, architecture and technology through exhibitions and programs intended for a wide audience."

Amanda Levete, Principal of AL_A commented: “In understanding the EDP Foundation’s ambition for Lisbon, AL_A’s design for MAAT draws on the context of the site, creating both physical and conceptual connections to the waterfront and back to the heart of the city.”

Sitting in a prominent location on the banks of the river Tagus, MAAT will be the centrepiece of EDP Foundation’s 38,000m2 campus. The museum will repurpose an early 20th-century power station building alongside the new kunsthall designed by AL_A. The museum will host permanent science and electricity exhibits in the former power station, with a wide-ranging programme of temporary exhibitions taking place in the kunsthall.

With its unique heritage, an expanding Portuguese art collection, and an innovative exhibition programme, the EDP Foundation’s new museum will be a place for discovery, critical thinking, and international dialogue.

The Kunsthall Building
The new MAAT kunsthall building, designed by AL_A, will create exhibition spaces beneath a gracefully undulating roof, conceived to create new public space above the galleries. The project will renew access to the Belém waterfront from the city and consolidate the wider publicly-funded urban regeneration of the quarter.

Incorporating over 7,000m² of new public space, the kunsthall will explore the convergence of architecture, technology and contemporary art as a field of cultural practice. It will accommodate a trans-disciplinary programme of exhibitions, public events and community engagement. As a new discursive space for the city, it will lead the conversation about the evolution of Lisbon and Portugal.

AL_A’s response exploits the natural assets of the waterfront site, framing an architectural narrative that is sensitive to both its cultural heritage and the future of the city.

Inspired by Lisbon’s rich material heritage, calçada-tile pavements are subtly reinterpreted underfoot and used to merge the new public spaces with the existing texture of the city street.

Building on Portugal’s rich tradition of ceramics, 3D tiles articulate the façade and produce a complex surface that gives readings of water, light and shadow, capturing and magnifying the tonal light qualities of this site.

AL_A is the award-winning architecture and design studio founded in 2009 by the RIBA Stirling Prize-winning architect Amanda Levete with Directors Maximiliano Arrocet, Ho-Yin Ng and Alice Dietsch.

The practice’s approach to design balances the intuitive with the strategic, drawing on a foundation of rigorous research, innovation, collaboration and painstaking attention to detail. Ongoing commissions around the world include the highly anticipated expansion of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, due to open in 2017.