Casa Fernando Pessoa

What Casa Fernando Pessoa does

Casa Fernando Pessoa is a municipal museum and cultural center located in Lisbon's Campo de Ourique district (Rua Coelho da Rocha 16-18), dedicated to the life and work of Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935). Founded in November 1993 and managed by EGEAC — a municipal company of Lisbon City Council — the institution reopened in August 2020 after comprehensive refurbishment that improved accessibility, expanded exhibition space, and added a relocated ground-floor auditorium. The museum serves individual visitors, tourists, and school groups through guided tours in Portuguese, English, Italian, and Spanish, plus sign-language, Braille, and sensory backpack services. Beyond ticketed admission, the institution operates an educational service (Serviço Educativo) with structured programs from pre-school through secondary level, a poetry-specializing library, a physical and online bookstore (loja.casafernandopessoa.pt), and an auditorium hosting events such as the annual 'Jazz on the Terrace' series with Hot Clube de Portugal.

The institution's core cultural asset is Fernando Pessoa's personal library of approximately 1,300 annotated titles (more than half in English, spanning 8 languages), which was fully digitized in 2010 by an international research team led by Jerónimo Pizarro, Patricio Ferrari, and Antonio Cardiello and is now globally accessible via bibliotecaparticular.casafernandopessoa.pt. The bibliographic catalog was published as *A Biblioteca Particular de Fernando Pessoa* (2010), and the digital library is integrated with the Lyrikline and Europeana cultural networks. The institution received the APOM Best Portuguese Museum Award in 2021, judged among more than 200 candidacies.

The business model is a hybrid of public-sector municipal funding via EGEAC and direct self-generated revenue from ticket sales (€6 per English guided tour), bookstore and merchandise sales (both on-site and online), school group bookings, and paid cultural events. Distribution channels include the physical museum in Lisbon, online ticketing through Bol.pt, a global-access digital library, an e-commerce shop, and partnerships with educational institutions and cultural organizations. The institution maintains a small operating team of approximately 11 employees and operates as a non-commercial cultural facility rather than a venture-backed entity.

Name

Casa Fernando Pessoa

Legal name

Casa Fernando Pessoa

Website

https://casafernandopessoa.pt

Company type

Private

Founded year

1993

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Casa Fernando Pessoa is a municipal museum and cultural center in Lisbon, Portugal, dedicated to the life and work of poet Fernando Pessoa. It serves individual visitors, tourists, and school groups through exhibitions, guided tours, educational programs, events, and a globally accessible digitized private library of approximately 1,300 annotated titles.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Lisbon

HQ country

Portugal

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Museum admission and ticketing: Casa Fernando Pessoa generates revenue through ticket sales for museum admission, guided tours in multiple languages (English, Italian, Spanish), and special exhibitions. Tickets are sold both online via Bol.pt and at the physical ticket office.
2. Bookstore and shop sales: The institution operates a physical bookstore/shop selling books, publications, and merchandise related to Fernando Pessoa and Portuguese literature. An online shop is also available at loja.casafernandopessoa.pt.
3. Educational services and school programs: The Serviço Educativo (Educational Service) offers structured programs for schools from pre-school through secondary level, including guided visits and creative workshops, generating revenue through school group bookings.
4. Cultural events and venue hire: The auditorium and event spaces host concerts (such as the Jazz on the terrace series), lectures, and cultural events, with some events free entry and others ticketed. The café/restaurant terrace is also a venue component.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Casa Fernando Pessoa is a museum and cultural center dedicated to Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935). It operates a permanent long-term exhibition on Pessoa's life and work, supplemented by rotating temporary exhibitions, multilingual guided tours, and an auditorium hosting cultural events including a summer Jazz on the Terrace concert series. The institution also offers school educational programs (Serviço Educativo), a poetry-specializing library, a physical and online bookstore, and a globally accessible digitized version of Fernando Pessoa's personal library of approximately 1,300 annotated book titles.

Product overview

Casa Fernando Pessoa is a museum and cultural center dedicated to the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935). The institution operates as a unified cultural space offering multiple interconnected services: the core exhibition showcasing Pessoa's life and work, a digital Private Library containing his annotated personal book collection of approximately 1,300 titles, an auditorium for concerts and events including the 'Jazz on the Terrace' summer program, a shop/bookstore, library services, and an educational service with programs for schools. The museum reopened in August 2020 after refurbishment with improved accessibility and expanded exhibition areas.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Permanent Exhibition (The Exhibition) A long-term exhibition on Fernando Pessoa that accompanies visitors from the first known written record of Pessoa at age six until the last sentence he wrote on the eve of his death. Aimed at museum visitors interested in Portuguese literary heritage.
• Temporary Exhibitions Rotating exhibitions that complement the permanent collection, such as 'Ecos do acervo - O Banqueiro Anarquista, de Mário Botas' and 'A Arca Eterna: Fernando Pessoa e a Posteridade'. Targeted at museum visitors interested in deeper literary and artistic themes.
• Guided Tours Mediated tours available in Portuguese, English, Italian, and Spanish, led by the Casa Fernando Pessoa mediation team. Aimed at museum visitors and tourists seeking in-depth contextual insights about Pessoa's life and work.
• Virtual Visit Digital exploration of Casa Fernando Pessoa that allows remote visitors to experience the museum's spaces and collections online. Targeted at remote audiences unable to visit in person.
• Shop/Bookstore On-site and online bookstore offering publications, merchandise, and books related to Fernando Pessoa and Portuguese literature. Aimed at museum visitors, literary enthusiasts, and online shoppers.
• Auditorium (Events Venue) Multipurpose venue for concerts, conferences, and cultural events, including the 'Jazz on the Terrace' summer concert series featuring musicians from Hot Clube de Portugal. Targeted at cultural event attendees.
• Library (Poetry-specializing) On-site library specializing in poetry with collections supporting the study of Fernando Pessoa and modernist literature. Aimed at literary researchers, students, and visitors.
• Fernando Pessoa's Private Library (Digital) A digital library containing approximately 1,300 titles from Fernando Pessoa's personal collection, including marginalia, annotations, dedications, and signatures, accessible online worldwide. Aimed at literary researchers, scholars, and Pessoa enthusiasts worldwide; some restricted works require authentication.
• Educational Service (Serviço Educativo) Structured learning programs offering school visits, creative workshops, and activities for children, families, and schools from pre-school through secondary education. Aimed at Portuguese schools and family audiences.
• Sound Walk - I know not what tomorrow will bring An audio tour experience available as part of the learning programme, offering an immersive way to explore the museum through sound. Aimed at museum visitors and learners.
• Jazz on the Terrace (Summer Concert Series) Summer concert series held every Thursday in July featuring jazz musicians from Hot Clube de Portugal performing on the restaurant terrace. Aimed at cultural event attendees and visitors during summer evenings.

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration1 record

Feature1 record

Partnerships

Five partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• EGEAC (Empresa de Gestão de Equipamentos e Animação Cultural)coreOthersEGEAC is the municipal entity that manages Casa Fernando Pessoa and other cultural facilities in Lisbon. It provides institutional oversight, governance, and operational support. EGEAC's logo appears on all Casa Fernando Pessoa communications, and the institution's accessibility policies, privacy policies, and codes of conduct reference EGEAC as the parent organization.
• Hot Clube de PortugalminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerHot Clube de Portugal is the partner providing jazz musicians for the 'Jazz on the terrace' summer concert series at Casa Fernando Pessoa. The series runs every Thursday in July, featuring musicians from the Hot Clube de Portugal in open-air jazz concerts on the restaurant's terrace.
• LyriklineminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCasa Fernando Pessoa's library is part of the Lyrikline network, an international digital poetry platform that promotes poetry through audio recordings and digital resources.
• EuropeanaminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCasa Fernando Pessoa's library is part of Europeana, the European Union's digital platform for cultural heritage, providing broader visibility and accessibility for the institution's collections.
• Centro de Linguística da Universidade de LisboacoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerIn 2010, an international research team coordinated by Jerónimo Pizarro, Patricio Ferrari, and Antonio Cardiello completed the full digitization of Fernando Pessoa's private library within a collaboration protocol between Casa Fernando Pessoa and the Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa.

Scale indicators2 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Others

• Europeana: EU-funded digital cultural heritage platform aggregating collections from European institutions including Casa Fernando Pessoa's digitized library. Functions as a distribution and visibility layer that amplifies the museum's digital reach and academic discoverability.

Broad incumbents

• MAAT - Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology: Lisbon-based museum offering permanent and temporary exhibitions, auditorium programming, and educational services. Competes for the same Lisbon cultural-tourist audience as Casa Fernando Pessoa but with broader subject matter and significantly larger scale.
• Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian: Major Portuguese cultural foundation in Lisbon with museum, library, auditorium, and educational programming. Operates as a broader, well-funded incumbent cultural institution with overlapping visitor, educational, and cultural-event programming in Lisbon.
• Centro Cultural de Belém: Large Lisbon cultural complex housing exhibitions, performances, and educational programs. Competes for Lisbon cultural visitors and events audiences, with overlapping programming categories (cultural events, educational services, exhibitions).
• Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga: Portugal's flagship national museum in Lisbon housing a major permanent collection, temporary exhibitions, and educational programs. Directly competes for Lisbon cultural-tourist footfall and school group bookings with Casa Fernando Pessoa.

Direct peers

• Keats-Shelley House: Rome-based literary house museum dedicated to Romantic-era English poets, offering guided tours, exhibitions, and educational programs for an international audience. Closest international functional analog — a small literary-house museum monetizing a niche poet's collection via ticketed visits.
• Casa José Saramago: Literary house museum in Portugal dedicated to Nobel laureate José Saramago, operating comparable visitor services (exhibitions, guided tours, bookstore, educational programs) and serving as a direct national analog to Casa Fernando Pessoa's poet-house museum model.
• Shakespeare Birthplace Trust: UK charity managing multiple Shakespeare-related heritage properties with ticketed entry, exhibitions, and educational programs. Comparable as a literary-heritage house-museum network anchored on a single canonical author.
• The Brontë Parsonage Museum: Literary house museum in Haworth, UK dedicated to the Brontë sisters, combining historic house interpretation with literary collections, educational programming, and ticketed admission — a comparable author-anchored heritage museum of similar scale.
• Casa de Camilo (Fundação Eng. António de Almeida): Portuguese literary house museum in Vila Nova de Famalicão dedicated to Camilo Castelo Branco. Operates an analogous author-house museum model with guided tours, exhibitions, and educational programming for schools.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Facebookfacebook.com/casafernandopessoa
• Instagraminstagram.com/casafernandopessoa/?hl=pt
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/casa-fernando-pessoa

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Casa Fernando Pessoa