Cais das Artes

About this place

Cais das Artes, the «Arts Quay», is a large cultural complex with a theatre and a museum on the Vitória bayfront in Enseada do Suá, covering about thirty thousand square metres, some three thousand of them for the museum. It was designed by the architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha, a Vitória native who won the Pritzker Prize in 2006, in a brutalist style of heavy concrete that he described as «a monumental confrontation between nature and construction». Work began in the late 2000s and stalled for many years before its opening season finally began in January 2026, including Sebastião Salgado's «Amazônia» photography exhibition. The building is worth seeing for its architecture alone, with its concrete mass suspended over the waterfront and views across the bay to the mountains. As the programme of exhibitions and shows is still new, check what is open and the times before going.