Summer School on Social Innovation
The Venue
A landmark in the Portuguese architecture of the 1960's, the Gulbenkian centre was designed by three Portuguese architects, Alberto Pessoa, Pedro Cid and Rui Athouguia.
The apparently simple, modern building is skillfully combined with the surrounding park with its lake and open-air auditorium to form a harmonious whole.
The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation is located in the centre of Lisbon, next to Praça de Espanha, in a park covering a total area of around 7,5 hectares.
The buildings that house the head office and the museum cover approximately 25,000 m2. Opened in 1969, these buildings aim to create a pleasant, serene atmosphere, allowing several different views of the surrounding woods and gardens to be seen from the interior.
The building and fittings adopted the most modern techniques, specifically using reinforced concrete and pre-stressed concrete. The following figures give an approximate idea of the scale of the work involved: 150,000 m3 of excavation work, 45,000 m3 of concrete, 3,200 tons of steel, 100 kilometres of electrical cables, 50,000 m2 of air-conditioning ducts and 3,500 kW of power.
The head office measures approximately 125 metres long by 25 metres wide. The four floors above ground level house the Foundation’s administration and various departments, as well as providing a space for events, exhibitions, conferences and congresses. The technical departments and workshops are housed in the two floors below ground level.
The Large Auditorium, located at the southern end of the head office building, has a capacity of 1,300 seats. It is equipped for all kinds of artistic events, such as concerts, theatre, dance and conferences. The stage has eight lifts and a mobile acoustic canopy and systems for simultaneous translation.
The main building also includes the Small Auditorium, with a capacity of 334 seats, several conference rooms and two galleries for temporary exhibitions.
Modern Art Centre
A comprehensive collection of contemporary art and sculpture has also been acquired over the years, mainly Portuguese but with some works by British artists. This is housed in the José de Azeredo Perdigão Modern Art Centre.The Modern Art Centre was opened in 1983 in the southern part of the Gulbenkian Park. Ten years later, as a tribute to the Chairman of the Foundation's first Board, it was renamed the José de Azeredo Perdigão Modern Art Centre (CAMJAP).
The CAMJAP building consists of two separate sections: the Modern Art Museum, which comprises three interconnected galleries, and a space for cultural events, including a multi-purpose room for events and meetings. A reception hall with a cafeteria and bookshop links these premises.
Gulbenkian Park
The Gulbenkian Park, formerly the Santa Gertrudes Park, was purchased from the Counts of Vilalva in 1957, and now covers approximately 7,5 hectares. This was the space where the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation built its head office and museum, later adding the José de Azeredo Perdigão Modern Art Centre. The project for the Park, interior gardens and terraces with gardens was drawn up by landscape architects Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles and António Viana Barreiro, who worked closely with Alberto Pessoa, Pedro Cid and Ruy Athouguia, the architects who designed the Foundation's complex of buildings.Modifications had to be made to the terrain as the project included creating a lake and an open-air amphitheatre, as well as installing slabs of concrete on the ground to allow easy movement around the park. The garden design involved the careful selection of trees, shrubs and flowers.
The open-air amphitheatre, with a seating capacity for around 1,000 people, is superbly set in the gardens in the park, using the landscape around the lake as its backdrop. During the day, many visitors turn it into a special place for resting, reading and meditation.
The amphitheatre also acts as the stage for dance, theatre and music, mainly in the summer.
