National Tile Museum (Museu Nacional do Azulejo)

The National Tile Museum’s renovation, and its reopening date

The museum closed on 1 November 2025 for building work under the PRR, Portugal’s EU-funded recovery plan. The works are meant to look after the collection better and to improve access and visitor facilities.

There’s no reopening date yet. On 25 October 2026 neither the museum nor Museus e Monumentos de Portugal, the state agency in charge of it, gave one. When it announced the closure, the agency only said it hoped to reopen as soon as possible.

The works cost 4 million euros. They cover the roofs, façades and windows, and the restoration of the King João III cloister, the small cloister, the restaurant and the winter garden.

In April 2026 the news site O Minho reported that they should finish early in the second half of the year. That’s the end of the building work, not a reopening date.

Where to see tiles while the National Tile Museum is closed

The museum is still showing tiles, in Belém. Open Azulejo, an exhibition it runs with Museus e Monumentos de Portugal and the University of Lisbon, opens up the Palácio da Calheta. The building is usually shut to the public, and its tiles are still on the walls where they were laid.

Back in the centre, the museum shop is open at the Palácio Foz, on Praça dos Restauradores.

For tiles in the open air, climb to Senhora do Monte in Graça, the highest point of the historic centre. A panel of azulejos there helps you pick out the main monuments across the city.

The Great Panorama at the National Tile Museum

Made around 1700, the Great Panorama of Lisbon is a band of tiles 114 centimetres high and almost 23 metres long.

It shows 14 km of riverside, from Algés, just west of Belém, to Xabregas, the district where the museum stands, as the city looked before the 1755 earthquake. You can pick out the castle, São Vicente de Fora, the royal palace on the river, Jerónimos and Belém Tower.

At the far right end is the Madre de Deus convent itself, founded in 1509 by Queen Leonor, widow of King João II, and home to the tile museum since 1965.

The panel came from the palace of the Counts of Tentúgal on Rua de Santiago. It’s attributed to the Baroque painter Gabriel del Barco, who died in 1703. In 2014 an article in the Revista de História da Arte went back over who made it, with new documents.

More of the National Tile Museum’s collection

Around the panorama, the collection follows Portuguese tiles from the 15th century on, and the museum picks out a few pieces. One tells the story of a hatter, António Joaquim Carneiro, in tiles from around 1800; another is a Dance Lesson of about 1707 by the Dutch painter Willem van der Kloet.

There’s also a Leopard Hunt from 1650–55, and an altarpiece of Our Lady of Life from 1580, attributed to Marçal de Matos. The convent’s nativity scene was made around 1750 by António Ferreira.

Before the works, the museum also had a café, a restaurant, a shop and a library.

National Tile Museum tickets, now and after the works

While it’s closed there’s nothing to buy. Before the works the ticket cost €10, and the museum is still on the Lisboa Card’s list of included sights. The conditions after the reopening haven’t been announced.

For now the museum adds nothing to the Lisboa Card, from €31 for 24 hours, so leave it out when you weigh up the card for your dates.

A Belém morning with Open Azulejo

The Palácio da Calheta is in Belém, so Open Azulejo fits a morning there, on any day but Monday, when the exhibition is shut. Belém is a train ride from Cais do Sodré or a ride on tram 15E from Praça da Figueira, and the Lisboa Card covers both.