The Old Royal Riding School or the New Coach Museum?
Picadeiro Real (1726) and Edifício Novo (2015) face each other across Avenida da Índia — what's in each, what's open now and which one you should prioritise.
The single feature of the Royal Coach Museum that most international visitors miss is that it occupies two completely different buildings facing each other across Avenida da Índia in Belém. The historic Picadeiro Real, built in 1726 as the royal riding school next to the Belém Palace, was the museum's only home from its foundation in 1905 until 2015. In May 2015 a modernist concrete pavilion designed by the Pritzker laureate Paulo Mendes da Rocha opened directly opposite, and the bulk of the seventy-vehicle collection moved across the street. Both buildings remain part of the museum and a single ticket has historically covered access to both. This guide explains what is in each building, what is currently open, and which side of Avenida da Índia you should prioritise if your time is limited.
Picadeiro Real: the 1726 royal riding school
The Picadeiro Real is a baroque royal riding school built in 1726 by the Italian architect Giacomo Azzolini for King João V, set in the grounds of the Belém Palace which today is the official residence of the President of Portugal. The hall is a single large barrel-vaulted space with a painted ceiling and a gilded upper gallery from which the court watched dressage and equestrian displays. It was used for the training of royal horses and the staging of ceremonial equestrian performances until the abolition of the monarchy in 1910. From 1905, when Queen Amélia founded the Coach Museum, it became the museum's only display space and remained so for 110 years until the new building opened in 2015. The hall was also the setting for at least one major royal wedding reception in the early nineteenth century, and several court paintings of the period depict its barrel-vaulted interior at full ceremonial capacity.
Architecturally the Picadeiro Real is one of the most beautiful eighteenth-century interiors in Lisbon, and seeing the gilded coaches lined up inside the gilded riding school produced the famous tableau that defined the museum's image for over a century. The painted ceiling depicts scenes from Greek and Roman equestrian mythology, the carved wood gallery still carries traces of its original blue and gold paint, and the floor pattern echoes the markings of an active dressage hall. The principal coaches displayed here historically include the Coach of the Marquis of Marialva and several ceremonial gala carriages of the eighteenth century, though the rotation can vary and the absolute showpieces — the Pope Clement XI embassy coaches — are now displayed in the new building across the street. Conservation work in the early 2000s revealed several previously hidden layers of original eighteenth-century paint beneath later overpainting, and parts of the gallery have been carefully returned to their first decorative scheme.
Edifício Novo: the 2015 Mendes da Rocha pavilion
The Edifício Novo, opened in May 2015 directly opposite the Picadeiro Real, is the museum's main public building and the home of the bulk of the seventy-vehicle collection. It was designed by the Brazilian architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha, winner of the 2006 Pritzker Prize, in collaboration with the Portuguese architect Ricardo Bak Gordon. The building is a long, low rectangular pavilion of roughly twelve thousand square metres, lifted clear of the ground on slim cylindrical concrete columns, with a single enormous naturally-lit main hall topped by a clerestory roof that washes the gilded carriages with soft, even daylight. Visitors enter via a long ramp that rises into the hall, and the structure is intentionally rough — exposed concrete, simple steel-framed glass — to set off the elaborate baroque carving of the coaches displayed within.
Inside, the chronological core of the collection runs from the late-sixteenth-century travelling coach traditionally associated with Philip II of Spain through the great baroque ceremonial vehicles of the eighteenth century to the late-nineteenth-century landaus of the last Portuguese kings. The middle of the hall is dominated by the three Pope Clement XI embassy coaches of 1716, which are the museum's absolute highlights and which now live permanently in the new building. The upper level holds harnesses, court liveries, equestrian portraits and supporting documents. Critical opinion on the architecture has been mixed — some visitors miss the warmth of the old riding school — but the new building has roughly doubled annual visitor figures and made the collection genuinely visible for the first time. The building's design also won several international architecture prizes after opening, including recognition by the Royal Institute of British Architects, and it features prominently in contemporary surveys of Portuguese twenty-first-century public architecture.
What is currently open?
As of the most recent operator updates, the Edifício Novo (the 2015 Mendes da Rocha building) is fully open during standard museum hours: Tuesday to Sunday from 10:00 to 18:00, last entry 17:30, closed Mondays and on the standard Portuguese state-museum holidays. The Picadeiro Real annex is closed for restoration. The Picadeiro Real annex across the avenue entered a phased renovation programme in late September 2025 and its access has varied phase by phase since then. At the time of writing, some phases of the renovation have permitted limited public access on selected days and others have closed the historic hall entirely; the operator's website carries the current status, and our concierge team confirms it for the date of your visit before issuing a ticket. The operator publishes weekly opening-status updates for the historic annex on its official website, and our concierge team monitors these updates daily so that customers booking ahead receive the most current information available.
If the Picadeiro Real is closed on your date, your ticket still gives full access to the Edifício Novo and the absolute showpieces of the collection — including all three Pope Clement XI embassy coaches — remain on display. In practical terms the great majority of what makes the Coach Museum world-significant is in the new building, so a visit on a day when the historic hall is closed remains absolutely worthwhile. If the Picadeiro Real is open on your date, allow an extra twenty to thirty minutes for it on top of the sixty to ninety minutes you would spend in the new building, and use the signalised pedestrian crossing on Avenida da Índia to walk between the two. Visitors who specifically want to see the historic Picadeiro Real should ask our team to confirm before booking, and we will only proceed with the booking once we have written confirmation from the operator about its open status on the chosen date.
Which side should you prioritise?
If your time is genuinely limited — for example a cruise stopover with only forty-five minutes to give the museum — prioritise the Edifício Novo. The new building holds the Pope Clement XI embassy coaches, the Philip II travelling coach, the principal eighteenth-century gala carriages and the late-nineteenth-century landaus of the last Portuguese kings. It is the chronological core of the collection and the architectural setting that conservation experts consider best for the carriages. A focused forty-five-minute visit can comfortably cover the central hall, the three embassy coaches at proper length and a quick walk through the upper level. The most efficient forty-five-minute visit therefore begins immediately inside the entrance, moves directly to the Pope Clement XI embassy coaches in the centre of the hall, and only then doubles back to the chronological start of the collection. The new building's high ceiling and natural daylight also make it the more comfortable choice in extreme summer heat.
If you have ninety minutes or more, and the Picadeiro Real is open on your date, walk across the avenue and spend the extra time inside the eighteenth-century riding school as well. The hall itself is architecturally remarkable and gives a strong sense of what the museum looked like during its first 110 years. For visitors with a particular interest in equestrian history, the painted ceiling, the gilded gallery and the surviving evidence of the hall's original use as a working dressage space are unmatched in Portugal. The contrast between the two buildings — baroque hall and brutalist pavilion separated by a single street — is itself the museum's signature insight, and worth experiencing both sides of when possible. Allow a few extra minutes to cross Avenida da Índia safely using the signalised crossing immediately outside the new building entrance, since the avenue carries fast through-traffic and is not safe to cross informally.
Why both buildings matter to the museum's story
The two buildings together tell the museum's institutional story in a way that neither could alone. The Picadeiro Real is where Queen Amélia consolidated the surviving royal coaches in 1905, where the collection survived the regicide of 1908 and the republican revolution of 1910, and where generations of Lisbon families first saw the carriages. The Edifício Novo is where contemporary conservation practice could finally meet the scale and fragility of the collection, where the embassy coaches could be circled at proper distance, and where the museum became one of the most-visited cultural institutions in Lisbon. Each building also represents the cultural ambitions of its moment: late-baroque royal patronage and early-twenty-first-century democratic architecture. Together they also illustrate how a single collection can shift from a princely decorative-arts holding into a fully modern public museum without losing its connection to the original architectural setting that defined its first century.
The decision to keep both buildings active as museum spaces, rather than mothballing the historic riding school once the new building opened, was deliberate and reflects a broader Portuguese approach to heritage in which restoration and new architecture are encouraged to coexist visibly. Other examples include the Berardo Collection inside the Centro Cultural de Belém next door, and the MAAT museum and its restored power station along the riverfront. For visitors interested in this layered approach to heritage in Lisbon, the Coach Museum's pair of buildings is one of the most rewarding case studies in the city — and a good reason to make the short walk across Avenida da Índia whenever the Picadeiro Real is open. For art-history and architecture-school visitors in particular, the two buildings together form one of the most rewarding small case studies in southern Europe, and several Portuguese universities now run guided seminars across both sides of the avenue.
Frequently asked
Are the Picadeiro Real and the new building on the same ticket?
Historically yes — a single museum ticket covers both buildings and visitors can walk between them across the signalised pedestrian crossing on Avenida da Índia. Since 29 September 2025 the Picadeiro Real has been closed for a major PRR-funded requalification programme; your ticket gives full access to the Edifício Novo, where the Pope Clement XI embassy coaches and the main collection are displayed.
Where are the Pope Clement XI embassy coaches displayed?
All three Pope Clement XI embassy coaches of 1716, including the famous Coach of the Oceans, are displayed in the new 2015 Mendes da Rocha pavilion in the centre of the main hall. They are not in the historic Picadeiro Real. A visit to the new building is therefore essential for any visitor wanting to see the museum's absolute highlights.
If I only have 45 minutes, which building should I visit?
Prioritise the new 2015 Mendes da Rocha pavilion. It holds the Pope Clement XI embassy coaches, the Philip II travelling coach and the chronological core of the collection. A focused forty-five-minute visit can cover the central hall and the embassy coaches at proper length. Save the Picadeiro Real for a longer visit on a later trip.