Current activities:
Canto da Maya - Long term exhibit with over 50 works from the reknowned azorean sculptor, and including personal correspondence, photographs and materials. At the Santa Bárbara Center.
Sacred Art exhibit - Permanent religious art exhibit at Igreja do Colégio. Features catalog in english, audioguides in english, french and spanish
Natural History and Convent Memory - permanent exhibits at the Santo André center, featuring english texts.
Museum's opening hours
Summer (April 1st - September 30th)
Tuesday to Sunday, 10 AM - 5H30 PM
Closes on Mondays
Winter (October 1st - March 30th)
Tuesday to Sunday, 9:30 AM - 5 PM
Closes on Mondays
History of the museum
The Museu Açoreano (Azorean Museum) created by Dr. Carlos Machado in 1876, opened its doors on June 10th, 1888, located at the Liceu Nacional de Ponta Delgada.
Throughout the years, the Museum’s collections were enriched by new donations and acquisitions, growing larger in number but also on diversity. To the founding collection – Natural History – there were later additions such as African ethnography (1893), Art (1912) and, in the 1930’s, Regional ethnography, much due to the prolific cultural activities of that time, focused on studying the islands’ own identity traits.
With the acquisition of the Saint Andrew convent in 1930 came the opportunity to gather in the same building all the collections of the Carlos Machado Museum, by then already named after its founding father. In 2006, the Sacred Art collection was moved to the Jesuit college church nearby, where it is shown as part of a permanent exhibit. In 2010, the Museum opened a third center, Santa Bárbara, just south of Saint Andrew convent, where temporary exhibits are held.
Santo André center is opened to the public and offers Natural History and Convent Memory exhibitions.
The Museum’s mission
It is the Carlos Machado Museum´s mission to study and preserve heritage and through it unveil and promote Azorean culture and Azorean identities, focusing on educational activities aimed at several publics. It is a place of inclusion, where identities are expressed and diversity is promoted, where ideas are put forward and generations meet, where citizenship is developed and past and present are united.
Note:
The permanent exhibit of sacred art, at Church’s College, features audio-guides in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese