Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art

This guide to the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art in Porto opens on Carlos Alberto Cabral, the second Count of Vizela, who returned from the 1925 Art Deco exhibition in Paris determined to build a private world of his own, hiring some of France's finest designers to make it real. It follows nearly two decades of construction, including Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann's furniture, Rene Lalique's glass skylight and Edgar Brandt's wrought iron gates, and the count's brief life inside the finished Pink House. Locals nicknamed the whole estate for its blush-colored stone, long before anyone thought to call it a museum.