Ajuda was one of the Lisbon quarters that was less destroyed by the 1755 big earthquake. Therefore, the Royal Family decided to move to this part of Lisbon, and built a temporary wooden house while the project and the construction of a Royal Palace was not finished.
The construction of the Palace started in 1795, with a project of Manuel Caetano de Sousa.
Some time after the project would suffer a significant evolution, with the introduction of neo-classical elements and the new contributions of the architects Francisco Xavier Fabri and José da Costa e Silva. Despite of the magnificence of the plan and of the bulky financial resources, the Palace was inhabited with many interruptions, until finally the King D. Luís was installed definitely. His wife, D. Maria Pia de Sabóia, introduced her own decoration updating, with new exotic spaces and other functional rooms.
After the Implementation of the Portuguese Republic, the Palace was closed. In 1938 it was partially transformed in Museum in and headquarters of the Portuguese Cultural Department and of the Institute that manages the Museums in the country.
The Museum has a wide royal collection of decorative arts, dated from the 15th to the 20th century, from the collection of the old Ajuda Royal Palace.
The Palace has a beautiful over the Ajuda and Belém quarters and over the gorgeous Tagus river, and nowadays some of the most important presidential ceremonies here take place, in the big magnificent ceremony room.