Image: Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian, Lisbon
The Museu Calouste Gulbenkian in Lisbon is using its reopening weekend to invite visitors into a slower way of looking. On 18 and 19 July, the museum will present 'O olhar lento. 20 minutos com arte', a series of brief encounters designed to encourage close observation of individual works in the collection during the first days after the museum’s return from renovation.
According to the museum’s programme page, each session lasts 20 minutes and focuses on a single object from the collection, with a 10-minute interval between sessions. The format is presented as an opportunity to ask what we see, what makes a work irreplaceable and how it has survived over time. The programme is listed under 'Visita' for young adults and is marked M/16.
The event forms part of a broader reopening schedule announced by the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian after a year and a half closed for renewal and requalification. The museum says the intervention seeks to restore the spirit and coherence of its original project, re-establishing the relationship between architecture, art and nature that has long defined the building. The reopening also coincides with the 70th anniversary of the Gulbenkian Foundation.
The museum’s reopening page says the renovation was conceived to recover the coherence of the original design by architects Ruy Jervis d'Athouguia, Alberto Pessoa and Pedro Cid, with the collaboration of museologist Georges-Henri Rivière and architect Franco Albini. It also notes that the work followed an in-depth study of archival plans and period photographs, with original materials and the atmosphere of the 1960s restored through details such as silk, carpet, wood, bronze, glass and concrete.
The same page highlights a renewed dialogue with the surrounding gardens, with exhibition spaces reopening toward internal courtyards and careful attention to natural light across the year. Among the changes listed are a new numismatics room created from a former staff office that had never been open to the public, the restored Assyrian bas-relief in a more central position, and a renewed Lalique Room that now also includes paintings by Burne-Jones and Sargent.
For 'O olhar lento. 20 minutos com arte', the museum has scheduled sessions on 18 July from 16:20 to 23:10 and on 19 July from 10:20 to 21:10, with free admission. The event page names Carlos Carrilho, Filipa Santos, Raquel Feliciano and Joana Macedo under conception and guidance, and says the sessions will be in Portuguese. The museum’s reopening weekend also includes other activities, but this programme is presented as a stand-alone invitation to pause with one work at a time in the newly reopened galleries.
