Housed in a substantial converted warehouse on Rua da Cintura do Porto de Lisboa in the central Alcantara district of Lisbon, the Museu do Oriente is the principal museum of the wider Portuguese colonial and trading relationship with the various Asian regions of the wider international community. The museum is operated by the Fundacao Oriente and opened on 8 May 2008 in the substantial converted Comercio Geral do Bacalhau cod commercial warehouse on the central Alcantara docks. The Fundacao Oriente was originally established in 1988 with the principal aim of preserving and promoting the wider continuing Portuguese cultural relationship with the various Asian regions of the wider international community. The substantial foundation funding was originally provided by the principal Portuguese gambling concessionaire Stanley Ho through the various profits of the substantial Macau gambling concession that had been substantially controlled by the principal Stanley Ho group during the principal late twentieth century. The substantial principal building was originally constructed in 1940 by the Portuguese government as the principal Comercio Geral do Bacalhau central commercial warehouse for the substantial Portuguese national cod trade. The original substantial reinforced concrete commercial warehouse covers approximately five thousand square metres across the principal three floors and was one of the principal commercial warehouse buildings of the wider central Alcantara docks throughout the principal mid twentieth century. The substantial 2005 to 2008 commercial conversion preserved the principal external character of the substantial original commercial warehouse. The principal museum collection covers approximately fourteen thousand individual artefacts across the various principal Asian regional collections. The principal individual collections include the substantial Chinese ceramics collection covering the principal centuries of the wider Portuguese trading relationship with the Ming and Qing dynasty China, the substantial Japanese collection covering the principal sixteenth and seventeenth-century Portuguese trading relationship with Japan, the substantial Goan and wider Indian collection covering the principal centuries of the substantial Portuguese colonial presence in western India and the substantial Macau collection covering the principal centuries of the Portuguese colonial administration of the wider Macau territory. The supplementary substantial central temporary exhibition gallery hosts a substantial continuing programme of around four or five separate temporary exhibitions each year covering the various supplementary Asian cultural and historical themes. The principal continuing recent exhibition programme has included substantial individual temporary exhibitions covering the various traditional Japanese theatrical traditions, the various traditional Chinese landscape painting traditions, the various Indian Hindu and Buddhist religious sculptural traditions and the various supplementary Asian textile and decorative arts traditions.

Type: Tourist Attraction

Address: Avenida Brasilia, Doca de Alcantara Norte, Lisbon, Portugal

Opening Date: 08/05/2008