Casa São Roque - Art Center | Contemporary Art

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A memorable and timeless space

The history of Casa São Roque (formerly Casa Ramos Pinto) dates back to 1759, when, as part of Quinta da Lameira, it functioned as a mansion and hunting lodge, as was typical of Porto’s bourgeoisie and noble families.

In the 19th century, it belonged to the family of Maria Virginia de Castro, who in 1888 married António Ramos Pinto, one of the best-known producers and exporters of Port wine. Shortly afterwards, between 1900 and 1911, he commissioned architect José Marques da Silva to remodel and expand the house, while Jacinto de Matos designed the garden.

Exhibitions

Villa J

Opening on October 24 at 4:00 p.m.

Casa São Roque, the former home of the Ramos Pinto family, opened in 2019 after extensive renovation. Its program started with Inventória, a solo exhibition by the Portuguese artist Ana Jotta (J), featuring works from the Peter Meeker Collection. Seven years later, Casa São Roque once again welcomes J (in Portuguese, the letter J is pronounced “Jota”). The artist’s work will occupy the upper floor on a permanent basis, with an opening reception on October 24, 2026 at 4 p.m.

Oficina Arara – A Conspiração Dos Pássaros (A Conspiracy of Birds)

October 24th, 2026 to March 28th, 2027

Oficina Arara is an art collective founded in 2010 and based in Porto, Portugal. It is the city’s most public unknown artist, and this is one of its most comprehensive exhibitions to date. On display are over 200 works by a wide variety of contributors, as the collective includes painters, computer scientists, self-taught artists, musicians, printmakers, filmmakers, vernacular architects, writers, engineers, visionary inventors and creators and many others.

It’s a Pink Area

11 de abril a 4 de outubro de 2026

One way to describe It’s a Pink Area, an exhibition of new and existing works by New York-based artists Marc Kokopeli and Sydney Schrader, is to say that it’s made of edges and wedges. Alien objects have been inserted into familiar places, creating different geographies and newfound vulnerabilities. They create a kind of pink area, where the sharpened edges of sculpture, video, bodies, technologies, the miraculous, and the mundane seem to coalesce, intersect, or dig into each other, like pieces of splintered wood. These are artworks that pry things open.