Oliva Creative Factory

The Oliva Factory is an unmissable icon in Portuguese industrial history and for a long time played a key role in the affirmation and socio-economic development of São João da Madeira.
At its peak, it employed around three thousand workers. In the 1970s it was sold to the North American group ITT – International Telephone and Telegraph, entering a long process of decline from 1980 onwards which led to its total closure in 2010.
The city bought some of the buildings and subjected them to rehabilitation inspired by the model of converting disused industrial facilities into artistic and cultural centers.
The Oliva Creative Factory is one of these spaces and features an incubator for creative businesses, commercial spaces, a business center for mature companies, event spaces, interdisciplinary spaces for creative and cultural convergence, artist residencies and a cafeteria.
The incubator and business center is home to around 30 companies in the creative industries sector, with design as the main focus. In these spaces, you can find companies in the fields of product design, fashion, architecture, communication, creation and event production.
Recently inaugurated, the third building of this center also has industrial modules for the creative and technological sector.

In the heart of the old Oliva factory, a center with a restless and creative temperament is being reborn!

In the heart of the old Oliva factory, a bastion of Portuguese heavy metallurgy that marked the economic, industrial and architectural history of our country, a creative industries hub is being born, a hub of creative temperament that will introduce new ideas, creativity, culture and economic value to the region.
In addition to its industrial heritage, the Oliva Creative Factory is home to two art centers – Centro de Arte Oliva and Centro de Arte de S. João da Madeira – and the Northern Dance Conservatory.
As a complement to its activity, the space also has an infrastructure for hosting artists, creators and entrepreneurs from the creative and cultural industries sector.