Calouste Gulbenkian Museum

Lisbon, Portugal

The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation oversees various facilities such a museum (MCG), which houses Calouste Gulbenkian’s private collection, a Modern Art Center (CAM) which holds the most important collection of modern and contemporary Portuguese art, an orchestra and a choir, an art library and archive, a scientific research institute, and a garden. It is located in central Lisbon.

The Foundation fulfills its mission through cultural activities and innovative programs that develop pilot projects and provide scholarships and grants for other institutions and social organizations.

Established in perpetuity, the Foundation’s main purpose is to improve the quality of life through art, charity, science, and education.

Open since 1969, the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum is one of the world’s most important private art collections.

The museum was built according to the most modern concepts of museum architecture, in close harmony and relationship with the garden that surrounds it. The collection is comprised of the core sections of Ancient art, Islamic art, Asian art, and European art.

As part of its mission and commitment to the public, the museum’s Cultural Mediation Service, specifically the area for people with disabilities, works to ensure equalopportunity access to the exhibitions and collection. The services motto is “Learning is Doing”, with the aim of enabling discovery and creating the right conditions for building knowledge and developing lifelong skills.

Using different resources and forms of artistic expression, the mediation team seeks to encourage motivation for observing works of art based on different needs and interests:

• Broadening horizons.

• Awakening and improving intellectual abilities, namely creative and critical thinking, and processes.

• Establishing bridges between the person, the community and the spaces in which they move.