MAM - Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia (Museum of Modern Art of Bahia), Salvador

The Museum of Modern Art of Bahia (MAM-Bahia) resides in a 17th-century estate designated as a historical and artistic heritage site since 1943. Originally an agro-industrial complex akin to the sugar mills of its era, the site featured a manor house, chapel, slave quarters, warehouses, and a dock once used for the export of sugar and other goods. The three-story stone manor house, with its brick-arched ground floor, dates back to the 17th century, with the top floor added in the 19th century.

With a history stretching back over 400 years to Salvador’s early days, the MAM-Bahia site is documented as early as 1584. Today, the museum serves as Bahia’s leading space for contemporary art, hosting hundreds of temporary exhibitions, permanent collections, and multidisciplinary events-from music and dance to theater, film, and visual arts-throughout its six decades of operation.

Visitors access the manor via a bridge adorned with Baroque-style 18th-century Portuguese tiles. The Chapel of Our Lady of the Conception features traditional characteristics of parish churches of the period, including a unique design where the nave and main chapel share the same dimensions. Its late Rococo façade, likely dating to the 1800s, is complemented by a fountain, aqueduct, sandstone fountainhead with a grotesque face, and layered shell decorations.

Beyond the manor, chapel, and Gallery 3, MAM-Bahia offers a range of other spaces, including the Lina Bo Bardi Space, a bookstore, and expansive outdoor courtyards: the Sunset Courtyard (around 1,600 square meters) and the Mango Tree Courtyard (about 560 square meters), providing over 2,500 square meters of open space in total. The Flamboyant Courtyard (about 100 square meters) and the Rubem Valentim Room-home to 50 works by the acclaimed Bahian visual artist-add even more depth to the museum. This room also features a timeline and reproductions of key documents from Valentim’s career.

The MAM-Bahia collection spans modernist, contemporary, and folk art, encompassing a wide array of mediums including paintings, sculptures, photographs, assemblages, prints, and drawings.