Furniture Museum opens in monastery to celebrate wooden art

“Fhi a work very cherished by us, even because the Monastery of Santo Estevão de Vilela is perhaps the most beautiful buildings in the county, but it was decrepit. [...] In the background, it will present the history of furniture since arriving in Paredes, coming from Italy, until today, and will be the starting point for what we have already been doing, but now with another emphasis, which is industrial tourism ", tells Lusa the mayor, Alexandre Almeida (PS).

The first museum of the municipality cost three million euros, of which about 2.4 million were participated by the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR), estimated the mayor, staying in a monastery whose origins refer to the 10th century.

The museum opens the doors Tuesday, at 18h00, on an experimental visit, in the scope of the III International Biennial of the Arts in Madeira that takes place in the municipality, having inauguration scheduled for October.

“ It will be officially inaugurated by the President of the Republic [António José Seguro, who granted high sponsorship to the project], on a visit that he will also make to the biennial. We thought it was good to use that space to be the nerve center of the biennial, although there are other manifestations in other spaces ", noted Alexandre Almeida.

There will be a historical view of the process of production and manufacture of furniture throughout time, from the beginnings to the present, exposing final pieces, but also machines, tools and author chairs in the permanent exhibition.

Testimonials of companies, temporary art exhibitions, activities for families and children are also contemplated for the architectural project installed in the monastery, which was signed by architects Rui Dinis and Henrique Marques.

In addition to the exhibitions, the museum includes an auditorium, a space for workshops and live demonstrations of the art of woodworking, including “the art of the carving”, an area to serve as a “design incubator” and a bar.

As for the biennial, which takes place for the third time, from Tuesday to November 30th, one of the highlights will be the play “Moving Women” by the company Astro Pretended, presented Wednesday at 9:30 p.m. precisely in the new museum.

The exhibition “Sonhos da Terra, Filhos da Floresta”, curated by Helena Mendes Pereira, will be patent in this space, as central show, emerging other presentations in various furniture companies of the city, with artists such as Luís Canário Rocha and Xosé Luis Otero.

In music, there are concerts by the bands of Baltar, Vilela and Cête in the Chamber of Walls, while pianist Joana Gama presents, on November 26, “A Mind in the Heart”, in Farimobile.