The Best Museums To Visit In So Paulo

Although best known for being Brazil’s financial capital, São Paulo is also rich in art and culture. Here you can find some of the best museums in the country, with renowned collections comparable to other great cultural centers, such as New York and Paris. Read our guide to the top museums in São Paulo.

Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP)

The São Paulo Art Museum, or simply MASP, is the flagship of the city’s museums. The four red concrete pillars on which the museum sits create a landmark on São Paulo’s most famous street, Avenida Paulista. Founded in 1947, MASP was the first modern museum in the country. Today it brings together more than 10,000 works, including paintings, sculptures, objects, photographs and clothing from various periods, covering the European, African, Asian and American continents. On the second floor, visitors can take a peek at Lina Bo Bardi’s controversial crystal easels. Bardi created the easels back in 1968 shaking up the Brazilian art community with this radical design statement. In 1996 the easels were removed, but returned in 2015 to hold paintings of, Rembrandt, Cézanne, Renoir, Manet, Matisse, Volpi and Portinari, as well as contemporary, modern artists.

Opening Hours: Tuesday-Sunday: 10AM-6PM; Thursdays 10AM-8PM

MASP, Avenida Paulista, 1578, Bela Vista, São Paulo, Brazil 55 11 3149 5959

1. Museu de Arte Moderna (MAM)

Museum, Park

São Paulo’s Modern Art Museum (MAM) was founded in 1948 and is one of the oldest modern art museums in Latin America. Its collection has more than 5,000 works produced by the biggest names in Brazilian modern and contemporary art. Nestled among the trees and vegetation of the Ibirapuera Park the museum’s entrance welcomes visitors with colorful scenes created by the graffiti artists OSGEMEOS. Inside you can see one of the seven versions of Maman, a gigantic bronze spider, the work of artist Louise Bourgeois. The surroundings of the museum are remarkable in themselves. The sculpture garden was designed by famous Brazilian landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx and houses 30 sculptures in an area of 6,000 square meters.

Opening Hours: Tuesday-Sunday 10AM-6PM.

Catavento Cultural

Created to be an interactive space presenting science in an exciting way for children and adults, the Catavento Museum is one of the most visited museums in the city. Here visitors can touch a real meteorite, get to know the human body from the inside, understand how an energy generator works and find out that the Sun, seen from close up, is not as round as you may think. The museum is divided into four sections: Universe – from outer space to Earth; Life – from the first living being to human life; Ingenuity – man’s creations; and Society – controversial issues of human society.