At the bottom of Santa Catarina Street, already in Praça da Batalha, you can see the great building of the São João National Theatre, with its Ionic columns and allusions to the classical representation.
This building was constructed by decision of Francisco de Almada e Mendonça, commissioned to the Italian architect Vicente Mazzoneschi and inaugurated with the name of Real Theatre in 1794. In 1908, a violent fire destroyed this building, but in 1911, José Marques da Silva joins the reconstruction project and was reopened in 1920.
At the end of the 20th century the state buys the building and then installs the current theatre with the name that is known today. The building is a stage for events, its main focus is representation, but it has more artistic expressions in its space.