Welcome to the Official page of the Presidency of the Portuguese Republic

I am very pleased to be here in Porto, today, when 25 years have gone past after the setting up of the Serralves Foundation and 15 after the opening of the Museum of Contemporary Art, one of its symbolic areas.

I came, before anything else, due to the recognition the Foundation deserves for all it has achieved in such a short time on behalf of cultural and economic development and of the international prominence of the city, the region and the Country.

But I also came, I must confess, due to the bonds that personally link me, both to the birth of this project, and to the setting up of the various centres of activity that nowadays comprise the architectural and scenic environment rightly classified as National Heritage.

I firstly came here, as prime minister, in 1987, on the day the House and Park of Serralves were open to the public, an initial nucleus of what would be, two years later, the Foundation.

At that time, the State had already acquired the land and defined the objectives that should guide the future institution, which are anyway very clear in the decree-law I underwrote in June 1989.

The initial requirement was the creation of a museum that would house and maintain the large collection of modern and contemporary art that the national heritage had been accumulating, but which was scattered and, due to this, inaccessible to the people.

Secondly, it was necessary to find a suitably flexible institutional model to allow both the involvement of the civil society in a project that encompassed the whole Country, and the spirit of initiative that would be demanded from the new museum, particularly in the exchange with similar institutions, in Portugal and abroad.

These aims were the reason for Porto having been chosen as the preferred location. Even if no other motives had existed, the city’s history and the economic dynamics of the region would have sufficed.

Perhaps the most important motive, however, was that the city had been, for a long while, a reference in the field of educational arts in Portugal.

It was in the Porto School of Fine Arts that many of our painters and sculpturers were initiated in the 19th and 20th centuries. Thanks to a policy of awarding scholarships in foreign parts to the best students, which was pioneered by the School, some of these artists were able to continue their studies in Paris, or in Rome, thus placing Portuguese culture into contact with European avant-garde.

It was also here, in the School of Fine Arts, that what is now still known worldwide as the “Porto School” was born and nurtured, one of the most prestigious in the field of architecture to which belong, amongst others, names such as Siza Vieira and Souto de Moura, both already winners of the Pritzker Prize, the highest international distinction awarded to an architect.

For all these reasons Porto would anyway be the natural destination of a project on the lines we then rightly considered.

What was in effect intended was not the setting up of another State dependent institution, but a centre that would bring together civil society bodies and individuals, capable to impress on it cultural and social dynamism that would place the Country on the path of the more advanced artistic and cultural movements.

And Porto had all the conditions to respond to this challenge.

Chairman of the Board,
President of the Board of Founders,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

A quarter of a century on, we are enormously pleased to witness not just the manner in which the project has been materialized, but also how it enlarged its boundaries.

Based on a partnership that comprises, in addition to the State, several corporations and private individuals who became Founders and whose number has been growing, the Foundation renewed its initial areas, particularly the Serralves Park, which was refurbished by some of our best landscape architects.

In addition, it newly built the museum facilities with the design of Siza Vieira.

And it continues to develop, with the necessary independence from political forces or private interests, a wide and successful public training programme and to provide it with sensibility towards issues concerning the arts, culture and the environment.

The results of this programme could not be any better, if we take into consideration the art collection that is now included in the Foundation’s assets; the memorable exhibitions that have been held and that placed Serralves in the international tourist routes; the prizes that it has been awarded, specifically in 2012 and 2013; and, above all else, the millions of visitors it has welcomed in the last 25 years.

But the Serralves Foundation, unequivocally being one of the main Portuguese cultural institutions and, additionally, a reference in the international arts environment, is also a case of success in terms of economic impact, through the qualification of and the global increase in tourism which it has been generating.

In this instance I would like to underline the importance that Serralves has attributed, since the very beginning, to the connection of art production and culture dissemination with its insertion in the economic fabric, often including this issue in public discussion and setting the example of a dynamic and balanced management.

It was here that, 10 years ago, the I International Conference on Art and Enterprise was held. It is here that, since 2008, an incubator for innovative projects in the field of creative industries was installed.

I hope that the itinerary that has been followed until now continues for many years, with the same perspicacity over decisions to be taken, with the same drive imparted to the project and with ever greater successful results.

In this act of recognition of the state to an institution, its leaders and all those that work here, for the inestimable contribution given to Portuguese culture and society, I have decided to award the Serralves Foundation the grade of Honorary Member of the Order of Sant’Iago da Espada, and have the great pleasure to hand the respective insignia to the Chairman of the Board of Directors.

Thank you very much.