As it considers culture to be a strategic axis for building a country's identity as well as one of the most effective tools for promoting citizenship, Itaú Cultural operates on two distinct fronts. It is a cultural centre, which offers the public diversified programming free of charge, and it is also an institute, focused on research and the production of content, in addition to mapping, providing incentive and encouragement for the production and diffusion of artistic manifestations in different areas of expression.

The Institution seeks to act with diversified cultural policies tandem to those developed by the State. It includes among its objectives valuing the diversity of cultural experiences of a society as complex and heterogeneous as that of Brazil. It also aims at supporting cultural manifestations that contribute to the expansion of freedom of expression and artistic and intellectual creation, as well as encouraging the conception of important cultural actions.