The Islamic hall
Carpets, Iznik and Mamluk glass as summits.
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Taras Rynza from Moscow, Russia — CC BY-SA 2.0 · bm.iphone — CC BY 2.0 · muffinn from Worcester, UK — CC BY 2.0
The Gulbenkian is Europe's purest private collection: Calouste Gulbenkian — the Armenian Mr. Five Percent of Iraq's oil — gathered with blazing taste six thousand unmixed summits, only the finest of everything, and willed them to the Lisbon that sheltered him; a modernist campus (1969) rose for them in a garden counted Portugal's finest modern architecture. The eastern wing is a treasure belonging especially to Arab and Muslim visitors: Persian and Ottoman carpets among the greatest preserved, Iznik ceramics in full blue, manuscripts and gilded Mamluk glass — among all Europe's noblest Islamic-art rooms — then Egypt, Greece, Rembrandt, Rubens and Turner, closing in the René Lalique hall: the jeweller-friend's glass and ornament in a collection without planetary second. The garden around is a forest of pockets, ponds and ducks worth its own free hour — Lisbon's mid-town green refuge.
Carpets, Iznik and Mamluk glass as summits.
The artist's jewels without planetary second.
Ponds, ducks and 1969's poetic concrete.
Avenida de Berna 45, 1067-001 Lisbon
Gulbenkian Modern Art CentreThe modern and contemporary art centre of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, in2 minutes walk4.4
Dr. Anastácio Gonçalves House-MuseumA house museum in an early twentieth-century villa on Avenida 5 de Outubro, whos10 minutes walk4.5
Parque Eduardo VIIThe largest park in central Lisbon, running uphill from the Marquês de Pombal sq12 minutes walk4.5
Lisbon ZooLisbon's zoo, among the oldest in Europe, dating to 1884, on a large site north-19 minutes walk4.4
National Society of Fine ArtsAn arts institution founded in the nineteenth century and still operating, in a 22 minutes walk4.5An Istanbul Armenian who engineered Iraq's oil deals, took his famous five percent and became his era's richest man — fleeing Europe's war (1942), neutral Lisbon sheltered his last years, so he willed it collection and foundation: Iberia's largest charity to this day. His museum is a whole city's returned favour.