MAAT - Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology

The Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT) opened in October 2016 as an ambitious international cultural institution on Lisbon's Belém waterfront. Created by EDP Foundation as part of their long-standing cultural patronage, MAAT aims to spark critical discourse and creative practice about our historical present and responsible commitment to the future. The museum campus comprises three distinctive spaces: the striking contemporary MAAT Gallery building designed by British architect Amanda Levete's firm AL_A, the historic Central Tejo power station (built 1908-1940s, converted to MAAT Central), and MAAT Garden - a beautifully landscaped 225-meter riverside park by Lebanese architect Vladimir Djurovic connecting everything. The MAAT Gallery building is an architectural masterpiece that has become one of Lisbon's most recognizable modern landmarks. Its low-slung design features a distinctive undulating roof covered in 15,000 three-dimensional white tiles that catch and reflect the Tagus River's light. The building merges with the landscape - visitors can walk on, under, and through it, with the roof accessible as a riverside promenade offering stunning city and river views. Inside, 3,000 square meters of exhibition space flows organically through volumes of radically different scales, including the unusual elliptical Oval Gallery. MAAT Central, the converted Central Tejo power station, preserves Portugal's industrial heritage while housing permanent exhibitions about electricity's history (The Electricity Factory), plus rotating contemporary exhibitions. The historic brick-clad iron structure with its massive turbines and machinery creates a dramatic contrast to the sleek modern gallery. MAAT presents an ambitious program of temporary exhibitions featuring international contemporary artists, architects, and technologists, along with public programs, workshops, performances, and events. The museum's mission goes beyond traditional museum functions - it seeks to question and celebrate how we imagine (with art), inhabit (with architecture), and create (with technology) the world, fostering critical thinking about our relationship with the planetary ecosystem.