New National Coach Museum, Lisbon
Paulo Mendes da Rocha 

New National Coach Museum, Lisbon

Paulo Mendes da Rocha 


Located in the neighborhood of Belém, in Lisbon, the New National Coach Museum is part of an initiative to promote cultural tourism in this area of the city, with a great historical value tied to its role in the age of the discoveries.

Elevated on a public square, the museum has a dual organization: the main pavilion contains the coach collection and the adjacent volume accommodates offices, a restaurant and an auditorium. In terms of how it is inserted in the city, the building establishes an aerial connection that starts at the banks of the Tagus River, where the parking is located, crossing the railway line as well as Brasilia and Índia avenues. This walkway ends beneath the structural frame of the annex building, welcoming visitors into the open lobby of the auditorium, establishing in this way a complex boundary between public and private spaces.

Structurally speaking, the exhibitions pavilion concentrates its loads on fourteen pillars, on which four braced metallic trusses rest. The adjacent building is composed of a concrete framework which contains three independent prisms, covered by a metallic grid that lets natural light make its way into the building. 


Cliente Client

Ministério da Economia e da Inovação de Portugal

Arquitecto Architect

Paulo Mendes da Rocha

Colaboradores Collaborators

Bak Gordon Arquitetos Associados: Ricardo Bak Gordon; MMBB Arquitetos: Fernando de Melo Franco, Marta Moreira, Milton Braga

Consultores Consultants

AFAconsult (proyecto de ingeniería engineering project), Proap (paisajismo landscape), Nuno Sampaio (proyecto expositivo exhibition project), António Queiroz Design (señalética signage), Nuno Costa (coordinación de proyecto project coordination)