Electricity Museum

For some of us, electricity is all too easy these days: flick a switch, the light snaps on; twist a dial, the music turns up. It’s been a while since we had to break a sweat winding up our gramophones, or slowly turn purple while trying to blow up an inflatable mattress without a pump. But the Electricity Museum, found on the bank of the Tagus river, may give you reason to be a little more appreciative.

The museum is found in a huge, rather beautiful red-brick industrial building. It was originally built in the early 1900s as a power plant; now defunct, it instead serves as a museum that explains the evolution of energy.

Boiler Room

The permanent exhibition is the grand old power station itself, which illuminated Lisbon for more than four decades. With bits of original machinery on show, you get a real sense of how the plant worked and what conditions its workers had to endure. You can even step inside one of the colossal boilers to get a quite unique close-up view of its structure and internal components — and its not something you need to be an engineer to enjoy.

Never Too Old

Besides that, the power station also houses a whole range of temporary exhibitions and demonstrations, including outdoor solar power demonstrations, films, concerts and shows of photographs, paintings and sculptures. Far from simply being a relic, the old power station has become an exciting, forward-thinking institution.