Museum of Contemporary Art - Fortress of São Tiago

The Fort of São Tiago stands in the heart of 'Zona Velha' (the historical center of Funchal). It’s a building from the seventeenth century built in order to protect Madeira’s capital from pirate attacks.

The fort, with views of the Atlantic, was modified in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and has been adapted in the late twentieth century to function as a cultural center. It is in this wonderful structure that the Museum of Contemporary Art of Funchal is located. The space exhibits an extensive collection of Portuguese contemporary art from the 1960s to the present day.

The original nucleus of the collection came as a result of the Funchal Plastic Arts Prize that took place in 1996 and 1997 and in which many respected names from the Portuguese art scene participated.

Today the Museum’s collection contains numerous works by renowned artists, among them Pedro Cabrita Reis, Ana Vidigal, Gäetan, Eduardo Batarda, Daniel Blaufuks, Miguel Branco, Calapez, Pedro Casqueiro, Álvaro Lapa, João Vilhena, Pedro Proença, Fernando Calhau, António Palolo, Lourdes Castro, João Queiroz, Michael Biberstein, Patrícia Garrido, and many others.