The first step towards the creation of the Museu de Olaria, in Barcelos, took place in 1949, when the City Council decided to build an underground room designed to house the “ Olaria Barcelense ” – on the terrace of the Paço dos Condes de Barcelos, with half walls Mother Church. It took almost 15 years from the intention to open the Museum. The so-called “ Museu de Cerâmica Regional ” was inaugurated on May 4, 1963, in the middle of the Festa das Cruzes.

At the base of the creation of this cultural equipment was the collection of the ethnographer Sellés Paes, donated by himself, to the municipality of Barcelos, in 1952. Around 1982, it was verified that the underground room of Paço dos Condes no longer had the minimum conditions for welcoming the pottery collections, the City Council decided that the reserves should be transferred to Casa dos Mendanhas, a vacant building meanwhile acquired by the Municipality in the sixties.

After a lengthy technical process, the project to expand and remodel the Casa dos Mendanhas was approved in December 1989, and the building underwent renovation and adaptation works in 1991. The building’s requalification and enhancement extends to the outside. On the south façade, a large ceramic panel with a strong visual impact was placed, built specifically for the site by the Portuguese artist Eduardo Nery.

The Pottery Museum was opened on July 29, 1995. Fifteen years after its opening, there was a need for a new intervention, in order to adapt the building to the new challenges of museology. Currently, the Pottery Museum has a collection with more than 9000 pieces, mostly from the municipality of Barcelos but also from other regions of Portugal and Portuguese-speaking countries.