Serralves Foundation (Fundação Serralves) is an art foundation whose mission is to raise the general public's awareness concerning contemporary art and the environment.[1] The foundation is located in Porto, Portugal.
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The building of the Serralves Foundation is a project designed by the Portuguese architect José Marques da Silva. The House of Serralves is considered to be one of this architect's greatest achievements. It is an elegant Art Déco building with magnificent gardens surrounding it, one of which was designed by French architect Jacques Gréber.
The Museu Serralves, the first large-scale contemporary art museum in Portugal, is located in the Quinta de Serralves; a large property close to the center of Porto that includes a main house built in the 1930s for the Count of Vizela. The public access to the museum's ground is made at the highest level of the terrain through an opening in the existing wall that surrounds the property.
In pursuit of its statutory objectives, the Serralves Foundation signed a contract in March 1991 with the architect, Álvaro Siza Vieira, in order to draw up an architectural project for the museum. Construction began five years later on the former vegetable gardens of the Serralves Estate.[2] The new 13,000-square-meter building, which includes 4,500 square meters of exhibition space in 14 galleries, opened its doors to the public in 1999,[3] with the old Casa de Serralves serving as the foundation’s head office. In 2000, an auditorium was added. As in most of Siza’s buildings, the furniture and fittings were also designed by the architect, including lighting fixtures, handrails, doorknobs, and signage. Materials include hardwood floors and painted walls in gesso with marble skirting in the exhibition halls, and marble floors in the foyers and wet spaces. Exterior walls are covered with stone or stucco.
The museum opened with a proposal of works for the collection, most of which were bought in the subsequent years. Today, the collection is constituted by direct acquisitions by the museum, works deposited by the State and private collectors and also donations. From the beginning, the collection and the various exhibitions have focussed on the period following 1968. There are no permanent exhibitions, but the museum hosts five exhibits from invited artists every year. In recent years, the museum has organized exhibitions by Franz West, Roni Horn, Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, Richard Hamilton, Christopher Wool, and Luc Tuymans.
The landscaped gardens designed by João Gomes da Silva, on the approximately 18 hectars of land, preserved the most important species already existing on the site. The new Serralves Park opened to the public in 1987, and was subject to a recovery and enhancement project initiated in 2001 and concluded in 2006. Currently on display in the park are sculptures by Claes Oldenburg, Dan Graham, Fernanda Gomes, Richard Serra, and Veit Stratmann.