Centro Cultural de Belém
The Centro Cultural de Belém (CCB) (German: Kulturzentrum von Belém ) is a cultural center opened in 1993 in the Belém district in the west of the Portuguese capital, Lisbon . Initially only intended as the seat of the Portuguese EU Council Presidency in 1992, the cultural center has been the focus of the capital's cultural life ever since.
In 1988 the Portuguese government under Prime Minister Aníbal Cavaco Silva decided to establish a seat for Portugal's future EU Council Presidency in 1992. The government chose the historic Belém district as the location, where the Torre de Belém , the Presidential Palace ( Palácio Nacional de Belém ) and the Jeronimos Monastery are already located.
The design by architects Vittorio Gregotti (Italy) and Manuel Salgado (Portugal) won an architectural competition held in advance, in which the jury accepted and assessed 57 entries from various architects . They designed a large, bright complex of five individual buildings: a conference center ( Centro de Reuniões ), a center for the performing arts ( Centro de Espectáculos ), an exhibition center ( Centro de Exposições ), a hotel building ( Zona Hoteleira ) and a complementary building ( Equipamento Complementar ).
Construction began in September 1988 and was completed by the end of 1992. Only three of the five building components planned by Gregotti and Salgado were implemented; the architect Daciano Costa designed the interior. Today the cultural complex houses the exhibition center with the art gallery Museu Colecção Berardo , the conference center, in which, for example, OSCE conferences took place, and the drama center with three different-sized halls, in which opera and theater performances take place on an area of 97,000 square meters . A few shops and cafes complete the offer. From 1999 to 2006, the Lisbon design museum Museu do Design e da Moda was located in the cultural center.
Web links
- Website of the Centro Cultural de Belém (Portuguese, English)
Coordinates: 38 ° 41 ′ 44 " N , 9 ° 12 ′ 28" W.