Government promises to announce new space for National Museum of the Costume

O National Museum of the Costume will know “a new solution” of location in December and the expansion project of the Museum of the Chiado will have to be phased, today revealed the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport, Margarida Balseiro Lopes.

“ As long as the State is with the national museums in the state of degradation for years of disinvestment (...), they will not see me defending the creation of more national museums. The bet is to guarantee conditions for the museums we have,” said Margarida Balseiro Lopes in parliament in the context of the assessment in the specialty of the Bill of the State Budget for 2027.

Asked by the MPs about the heritage area, namely about the museums of public protection, the minister revealed that in December she will present a solution for the National Museum of the Costume, in Lisbon, and for the building where it was located, the Palace Angeja-Palmela, in Lumiar.

Last May, the minister announced that she was “studying other locations” to install the National Museum of the Costume, due to “very serious structural problems” in the building.

The National Museum of the Costume has been closed since 2024 for rehabilitation works under the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR), but these works, which had a budget of 7.4 million euros, did not happen.

In August, in an interview with the agency Lusa, the president of the public institute Cultural Heritage, João Soalheiro, explained that the rehabilitation project could not be implemented due to the lack of capacity to complete in time the implementation project necessary to launch the work.

With a collection of about 40,000 pieces, the National Museum of the Costume was inaugurated in 1977 and is installed at the Angeja-Palmela Palace in Lumiar, on an old Lisbon play farm, dating from the 18th century.

“Our great concern, in addition to reopening, is that workers have better working conditions,” said Margarida Balseiro Lopes, clarifying that only the botanical garden adjacent to the National Museum of the Costume was intervened under the PRR.

About the National Museum of Contemporary Art – Museum of Chiado, also in the capital, on which had been announced in 2023 an expansion project, the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport said it will have to be adjusted and phased.

“ Our concern was to end the PRR, it was one of the museums that was the subject of intervention, with an investment of 2.5 million euros. Let's go now, extra-PRR, forward with this project that has to be phased. We are ensuring the means for these projects to see the light of day. We will have to adjust the project and phase it to be feasible ", said.

The project of the renovation and expansion of the Chiado Museum – worth eight million euros – had been announced in January 2023 by the then Minister of Culture of the Socialist Government Pedro Adam e Silva, with the aim of doubling the reserve and exhibition areas of the museum with a collection of almost 6,000 pieces of art, from 1850 to today.

However, in November 2024, already under the successor of Adam and Silva, Delilah Rodrigues, the Museum and Monuments and Portugal (which protects the national museums) announced that the works of remodeling and expansion of the museum would not advance due to lack of funding.

Margarida Balseiro Lopes spoke today in parliament as part of the special assessment of the Proposed State Budget Law for 2027 (OE2027), at a joint hearing of the Committees on Budget, Finance and Public Administration and Culture, Communication, Youth and Sport.

According to the explanatory note on the budget of the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport, the total consolidated expenditure in the area of Culture, foreseen by the OE2027, will be EUR 541.7 million.