Open House London 2023: highlights and architectural celebration for all
Open House London 2023 is about to launch, offering ten days of architectural celebration across the city
Open House London 2023 is about to launch, running for nearly two weeks from 6 to 17 September, and offering free entry into iconic yet largely inaccessible places across London’s 33 boroughs. As the festival returns, highlights include peeks behind the black door of 10 Downing Street; trips to the revolving panoramic floor of the BT Tower; an intimate tour of a home in the Alexandra Road Estate; and a look at the vaulted Victorian Crystal Palace subway, a former WW2 air-raid shelter. Yet as well as unlocking physical doors, this year, Open House London is breaking down social barriers too, with a series of new initiatives designed to reach new, diverse audiences and better reflect the London of today.
Open House London 2023: what to see and where to go
New buildings on this year’s list include the 1982 Mallard Place estate in Twickenham, encapsulating progressive property developer Span’s philosophy of bucolic communal living; and the newly opened Tower Hamlets Town Hall, a smart retrofit of the Grade II-listed former Royal London Hospital. And, seeking to rebalance the church-heavy clutch of religious buildings, the Grade I-listed New West End Synagogue and the Hounslow Jamia Masjid & Islamic Centre are now also part of the list.
'One of the reasons people attend Open House is to see the city from a new perspective – when you go inside a building you’ve walked past every day, your experience becomes layered with personal stories, social significance and architectural qualities. You can really get under the skin of the backdrop to your life,' says Zoe Cave, chief curator at Open House.
Operating since 1992 with the aim of opening up buildings to the public to expand interest and education in architecture and the built environment, Open House is a format that started in London and has now been replicated in over 60 cities worldwide. The list of 700 sites to explore is daunting, which is why Cave has placed a focus on curation as a means to guide people through. Last year she launched the first cohort of ‘Guest Curators’, who craft personal ‘collections’ of buildings that tell their own story of London: 'We all carve our own routes through the city and sometimes it’s good to step outside your own,' she says.
This year, Guest Curators include Nabil Al-Kinani, a British-Iraqi built-environment professional specialising in urbanism and placemaking, who has curated a panel discussion on imperial nostalgia, empire and colonialism in Wembley, where he grew up; and the Patch Collective, a group of nine young architecture graduates, who have paired buildings of significance to London’s diaspora communities alongside tasty neighbourhood eateries. For example, Patch Collective member Betty Owoo paired an affordable live/work building for creatives in Barking known as ‘A House for Artists’ with Suya Hut, a local hotspot for traditional Nigerian barbecue-charred sliced beef. 'You’ll probably find you’ve done 20,000 steps by midday,' says Cave. 'Don’t grab a Pret; there’s more to find.'
Domestic design has always been the backbone of Open House and this year, access into other people’s homes feels all the more poignant post-Covid, says Cave, who prides herself in building good relationships with homeowners.
Wallpaper* favourites include: Burgundy Lanes, a materially rich midcentury renovation by Nim Tim Architects; Colour Casing, a bold and bright extension by District Architects, awarded ‘best project under £100k’ by renovation champion Don’t Move Improve!; plus the latter’s ‘Home of the Year’ awardee, the Secret Garden Flat by Nic Howett; and, both in Seven Sisters, the CLT-frame ‘Green House’ by Hayhurst and Co and ‘Gulag House’ an Edwardian terrace inspired by Indian modernism, by Artefact.
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
Set on improving accessibility to Open House for its lowest visitor demographic –young people from underrepresented backgrounds – this year Cave has taken a direct and interventionist approach specifically designed to have a knock-on effect on improving diversity in the wider built environment industry.
The new ‘City Curators’ initiative gives 15 young graduates ‘a crash course in public engagement and cultural networking’, and ‘London Unlocked’ provides a series of special building tours for the demographic – both of which have been supported by the City Bridge Trust. 'We wanted to find a way to engage young people who don’t own a space to open, but have different ideas and a perspective of what it means to open up London,' she says.
Connected to this mission, beyond the classic architecture tours and drop-ins, there’s a new set of creative events happening at many of the buildings to attract new audiences: an interpretive jazz evening at the brutalist concrete South Norwood Library; a meet and greet with traders at the Nags Head Market in Holloway; and a slime-making workshop (children only, unfortunately) at Central Hill Estate in Crystal Palace.
While it could be easier to rest on the laurels of a successful tried-and-tested formula, this year’s Open House is certainly continuing to challenge, critique and expand the meaning of ‘accessibility’ to the built environment in London today.
Open House London 2023 runs 6 – 17 Sept 2023
Harriet Thorpe is a writer, journalist and editor covering architecture, design and culture, with particular interest in sustainability, 20th-century architecture and community. After studying History of Art at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and Journalism at City University in London, she developed her interest in architecture working at Wallpaper* magazine and today contributes to Wallpaper*, The World of Interiors and Icon magazine, amongst other titles. She is author of The Sustainable City (2022, Hoxton Mini Press), a book about sustainable architecture in London, and the Modern Cambridge Map (2023, Blue Crow Media), a map of 20th-century architecture in Cambridge, the city where she grew up.
-
Louise Bonnet’s falling figures depict an emotional narrative to be felt rather than told
Louise Bonnet’s solo exhibition 'Reversal of Fortune' at Galerie Max Hetzler in Berlin, nods to historical art references and the fragility of the human condition
By Tianna Williams Published
-
The wait is over: Matthieu Blazy is Chanel’s new creative director
Matthieu Blazy has been appointed as the new artistic director at Chanel, after a critically lauded and commercially successful tenure as creative director of Bottega Veneta
By Jack Moss Published
-
Alaïa’s secret new London café and bookstore is inspired by the art of hosting
Housed on the third floor of Alaïa’s London flagship, the intimate space – inspired by Azzedine Alaïa’s famed hospitality – includes a Violet Cakes bakery and a bookstore by Claire de Rouen
By Jack Moss Published
-
A Corten-clad extension creates a prominent Peckham landmark: tour Rusty House on the Rye
Studio on the Rye’s radical overhaul of a 1950s house in south London pairs robust materials with expansive new interior spaces
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
The RIBA House of the Year 2024 winner is a delightful work in progress
The winner of the RIBA House of the Year 2024 is Six Columns in south London – the home of architect and 31/44 studio co-founder William Burges
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
A Peckham house design unlocks a spatial puzzle in south London
Audacious details, subtle colours and a product designer for a client make this Peckham house conversion a unique spatial experience
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
Squire & Partners' radical restructure: 'There are a lot of different ways up the firm to partnership'
Squire & Partners announces a radical restructure; we talk to the late founder Michael Squire's son, senior partner Henry Squire, about the practice's new senior leadership group, its next steps and how architecture can move on from 'single leader culture'
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Meet the 2024 Royal Academy Dorfman Prize winner: Livyj Bereh from Ukraine
The 2024 Royal Academy Dorfman Prize winner has been crowned: congratulations to architecture collective Livyj Bereh from Ukraine, praised for its rebuilding efforts during the ongoing war in the country
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
The new Canada Water boardwalk is an experience designed to ‘unfold slowly’
A new Canada Water bridge by Asif Khan acts as a feature boardwalk for the London area's town centre, currently under development, embracing nature and wildlife along the way
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
The Museum of Shakespeare set to open in east London
The Museum of Shakespeare puts the remains of the ancient Curtain Playhouse at the centre of 'The Stage', a new urban development in the heart of Shoreditch
By Smilian Cibic Published
-
Paddington Square transforms its patch of central London with its 'elevated cube'
Paddington Square by Renzo Piano Building Workshop has been completed, elevating a busy London site through sustainability, modern workspace and a plaza
By Ellie Stathaki Published