Venues

The public library of Barcelos is open since December 1996. Based on the old "Casa dos Machados da Maia", a building that the Town Hall acquired back in 1990. The old part of the house was restored and some new extensions were built. The library, with a total area of 4.070 m2 across its various levels, has an auditorium, reading rooms, chidlren's room, audio and video room, legal deposit wharehouse and working cabinets.

The art of ceramics and pottery is a tradition almost everywhere in Portugal, but it is in Barcelos that it attains its magnificence and greatness. The region of Barcelos is very rich in "masters of argil", which create genuine popular masterpieces with their hands, that reflect the tradition and the joy of living of our people. In 1963, the Regional Museum of Ceramics was born in this region of strong ceramic tradition, after the donation of a precious collection by the etnographer Joaquim Sellès Paes de Villas Boas. Later, in 1995, it occupied a new building, more functional and following the rules for the installation of museums, and it changed its name to Pottery Museum, extending its collection to national pottery. The Museum has a magnificent asset of nearly 7000 pieces, coming from several regions of the country, from Portuguese speaking countries and other foreign countries. It results from numerous donnations made to the museum, from field-works developed in ceramic centres and from acquisitions made to private collectors and antiquaries. The Museum is each day more diversified, more precious and more representative of different periods and regions/countries, and mainly of the Portuguese cultural reality, thus perpetuating the memories of a popular and cultural Portugal, and transmitting knowledge/information about the evolution of other cultures.

This building is the result of several annexations, reformations and additions made to the old Town-Hall building. The remodelling and the extension developed in 1849 granted it a certain uniformity. The building includes the old Hospital of the Holy Spirit, which was an assistance post to the pilgrims on the way to Santiago (of Compostela), and also the remains of the old Chapel of Virgin Mary, from the 14th century. The tower and the House of the City-Hall are from the 15th century, and the remains of the old Church of Charity (Misericórdia) from 1593. The building of the Town-Hall is from the end of the 19th century, beginning of the 20th century. Nowadays, all the features that testify the existence and the history of this building have been restored, due to an exemplary process of valorisation and restoration.

It is part of the old Benedictine convent from the beginning of 18th century. With the law of 1834, the monastery was sold and completely depersonalized. It only remains the church, under the care of the Confraternity of the Terço, and a portal from the old convent. Despite its simple outside, the church exhibits a dazzling inside-in fact, it is one of the most excellent and dense baroque insides in Portugal, because of the quantity of azulejos that cover all the walls, the carving of its 3 altars, the paintings on the ceiling.

This temple is located in the Porta Nova Square, right in the civic centre of the city. Its main façade is turned to the south. Its origin is related to the miraculous appearing of a clay-made black cross in the argillaceous soil of the «Campo da Feira» in december 1504. In 1505, it was built here a chapel, with an image of the «Senhor da Cruz» that a rich merchant had brought from Flanders. In the 17th and 18th centuries, this chapel was one of the most famous sanctuaries of Christ in Portugal. The present temple is open to worship since 1710. Its author is the architect João Antunes. Centered-plan building with a dome, its inside space is disposed in the shape of a Latin cross. The outside space is the result of the crossing and the conjugation of plain and round angles, and of granite and white lime. In its inside, of golden carving (whose author is Miguel Coelho, a sculptor and a carver from Barcelos), there are blue and white «azulejos» of the same period, with episodes from the Sacred Way (The Way of the Cross) and vegetal designs (whose author is João Neto, from Lisbon). The image of the «Senhor Bom Jesus da Cruz» is a sculpture almost of life size, oak-made; it is an extraordinary piece of flemish art, from the beginning of the 16th century. Only the face and the hands are painted. Its devotion is related to the maritime activities developed in the end of the 15th century.