The Oliveira Guimarães Museum House, in Espinhal, Penela county, where Luís Oliveira Guimarães lived, founder and first president of the Portuguese Society of Authors, is due to open to the public on July 20, said the family’s source.
The presentation of the project took place today in that locality of the district of Coimbra, in the manor of the family Guimarães, consisting of 38 divisions, whose construction began in 1720, and is currently under construction.
“A significant percentage of the rooms will be open to the public, although it remains a house inhabited by us, in the logic of English castles,” explained Paula Oliveira Guimarães, owner of the space.
The museological route “will go through several rooms, rooms, library, and garden, with the aim of familiarizing the visitors with what was life in a site of the rural world in the eighteenth century and subsequent,” he said.
People will be able to see tables, loias, jewels, silverware, antique furniture, exhibitions and part of the documentary collection, through a digital route, in order to “make the participation of visitors more lively and dynamic”.
According to Paula Oliveira Guimarães, it is a house “with a lot of history and with a great relationship with the community”, which in recent years has welcomed the realization of the Humor Biennial, in a joint organization of the family with the Câmara de Penela and with the Junta de Freguesia do Espinhal.
“We will also organize some thematic circuits, such as the humor circuit, for children and families, and therefore, will be a sample of eighteenth-century life, with the possibility of people touching things, asking questions and eventually living some of the realities of the house itself, “he said.
“The idea of making the Casa Museu was also a tribute to the town of Espinhal and the municipality of Penela since the site has only reached today due to the work and dedication and involvement of the entire community,” he said.
It is expected that the Casa Museu will open its doors, even in an experimental phase, on July 20, with an exhibition of children’s drawings from the Espinhal Schools Group, who will be the first to visit the house and write texts and drawings allusive to the house.
The exhibition inaugurates the temporary exhibition room that, according to Paula Oliveira Guimarães, already has programming defined until March of next year.
“We hope to attract visitors outside the district because above all we intend to serve as a space for cultural and community development in this area,” he said.
The presentation took place today, symbolically, in the solar family Guimarães, inserted in the program of commemorations of the 25 of April of the municipality of Penela.
