Formally titled the National Museum of Contemporary Art (Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea), it is popularly known as the Chiado Museum, for the Lisbon district where it is located. It occupies part of the former Monastery of St. Francis of the City, an institution that traces its origins to the 13th Century although the building itself was destroyed and rebuilt a number of times. After the fire that ravaged the Chiado area in 1988, the Museum underwent extensive remodelling by French architect Jean--Michel Wilmotte and reopened in 1994.

The Museum was founded in 1911 and specialises in Portuguese art from the 1850's onwards. Its collections (painting, sculpture, photography, new media) comprise some 5,000 items, but exhibition space is relatively small  and almost entirely devoted to temporary exhibitions of selected items.