The company
EGEAC – Empresa de Gestão de Equipamentos e Animação Cultural, E.M., S.A., is responsible for the preservation, promotion, and management of some of the most iconic cultural spaces in the city and for holding the Festas de Lisboa as well as other major cultural events, which take place seasonally.
With a privileged intervention in the city, EGEAC ensures multidisciplinary, comprehensive, inclusive, and democratic programming, seeking to be an active and receptive agent, both in the contemporary and popular spheres.
It is EGEAC’s mission to promote diversified and qualified access to culture, to stimulate artistic creation, to value cultural heritage, to encourage the growth of the audiences and to develop the promotion, preservation and dynamization of cultural activity in Lisbon.
Pedro Moreira
Chairman of the Board of Directors
EGEAC, inspiring with meaningful culture
As the new EGEAC Board of Directors team, it was a great honour to be invited to lead such a special and unique company operating in the area of cultural management in Portugal and we will undertake our role with a real sense of mission.
In August, we began a journey which we hope will bring out the personal traits of each board member, as well as our management vision. But we will also be listening to, taking on board and incorporating the ideas and suggestions shared by an organisation where people have a voice and are valued.
There’s a city out there eagerly awaiting new initiatives and opportunities to live and experience culture and all that it provides: moments of joy, sharing, entertainment and discovery. In a nutshell, happiness in the lives of Lisbon’s residents.
Our responsibility has never been greater: to alleviate the pain of and move on from one of the most challenging periods in our collective history, where people were deprived of affection and social interaction, condemned to an enforced isolation. But it was not just culture vultures who were deprived of the good that culture brings. Agents, providers, promoters and the entire ecosystem that supports culture were prevented from doing their jobs.
We must recover Lisbon and the culture industry from the social fracture we are experiencing. That’s why post-pandemic EGEAC’s priority is to make culture shine again in Lisbon.
The new Board of Directors hopes to count on everyone to carry out this mission. It is only with committed people, well-run teams, creative and innovative programmes, and an intelligent and appropriate use of the resources at our disposal that we can make a difference to culture in this unique city.
Lisbon is waiting for us and we’re ready to give Lisbon EGEAC’s best. Let’s get cracking?
History
In August 1995, Lisbon City Council created a municipally owned corporation, EBALH – Equipamentos dos Bairros Históricos de Lisboa, following policies and dynamics of urban rehabilitation and revitalisation. Investing in anchor projects, that would attract and fix the population in the historical neighbourhoods, rehabilitating and transforming large facilities (buildings or groups of buildings) and developing cultural projects were this new company’s main objectives.
The facilities managed by this company at the time included Castelo de S. Jorge (the Castelo museum site and neighbourhood), Teatro Taborda and its surrounding areas, Palácio Pancas Palha, in Santa Apolónia, Largo do Chafariz de Dentro, where there was an idea for a museum dedicated to Fado, Convento das Bernardas (where there was an idea for a museum project dedicated to puppets) and Palácio Marim Olhão, on Calçada do Combro. In 1996, EBAHL recognised that the Festas de Lisboa had its cultural tradition and programme firmly rooted in the city’s historic neighbourhoods, “and that the fleeting nature of these events should leave their mark for the future”, and so it also took on the event’s organisation. Ever since the company was founded, it was made up of multidisciplinary teams that prepared the projects, oversaw the restoration and renovation works, and planned the new cultural spaces.
In 2003, EBAHL changed its name to EGEAC – Empresa de Gestão de Equipamentos e Animação Cultural – and with this change came a new strategy.
The company’s activity took on a greater scale, moving from covering just the city historic neighbourhoods to the entire city, and new cultural spaces joined it: the São Luiz and Maria Matos theatres, Cinema São Jorge, Padrão dos Descobrimentos (2003), Casa Fernando Pessoa (2012), Atelier-Museu Júlio Pomar and Galerias Municipais (2014), the different branches of the Museu de Lisboa, the Museu Bordalo Pinheiro and the Museu do Aljube (2016). In 2018, LU.CA – Teatro Luís de Camões, dedicating its programme of events to children and young people opened its doors, and TBA – Teatro do Bairro Alto was inaugurated in 2019. In 2023, the transition process of the Arts Centre – Blue Pavilion and Variedades Theatre began to take place. These two equipements now join the Espaço Atlântida – Center for the Study of History and Reading, which will operate at the Palacete Pombal, on Rua das Janelas Verdes, in Lisbon.
Out-of-court settlements for resolving consumer disputes:
EGEAC, E.M. is a member of the Lisbon Consumer Conflict Arbitration Centre, with the following contact details:
Rua dos Douradores, 116, 2º
1100-207 LISBOA;
Tel: +351 218 807 030 / Fax: +351 218 807 038;
E-mail: juridico@centroarbitragemlisboa.pt / director@centroarbitragemlisboa.pt;
Web: www.centroarbitragemlisboa.pt
In the case of litigation, the consumer can get in touch with this litigation resolution body.
Further information is available on Portal do Consumidor www.consumidor.pt