The Open House Prague Festival exists to make cities around the world more open and accessible. Every year, it opens the doors of buildings that are inaccessible to the public. During the coronavirus pandemic, the organisers decided to organise for the fans the first ever international festival next weekend, on November 14 and 15, via a 48-hour non-stop live online broadcast. The festival will take viewers to more than 40 cities on five continents.
"In this challenging year, the entire Open House community has come together to create an online festival with a program that will offer an unprecedented view of cities around the world, from Santiago, Lagos to Taipei,"
says Phineas Harper, the director of the Open City organisation that manages the Open House Worldwide network.
The date for your diaries
The festival will start at midnight from Friday to Saturday November 14th UTC (at 1.00 am CET) and will feature organisers from various cities of the international network. The following program of the festival in the form of tours, discussion panels or short films and documentaries is divided into several thematic blocks, which open up current issues of contemporary architecture and urbanism.
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Lagos PortugalskoSource: LP-Life
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TaipeiSource: Jeffery Chen
The festival speaks of international issues
Open House Worldwide will address the challenges people face around the world in regards to architecture and environmental design - from climate change to housing and mobility, public space, urban social life, world design and cultural heritage.
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ChicagoSource: Barry Butler
Where to watch it?
Just like all other Open House events, the Open House Worldwide festival is accessible for free and will be streamed on the Open House Worldwide website, as well as on Facebook. Entries from individual cities will be available for viewing mainly in the original language with English subtitles.
"Open House Prague has been a proud member of the international Open House Worldwide network since 2014 and we are pleased to be able to participate in the preparation of this important international event and present Prague alongside the world's most important cities. We believe that in these difficult times we will at least provide people with a virtual visit to the world's cities and the hot topics that are now moving the world,"
added Andrea Šenkyříková, founder and director of the Open House Prague festival.
Pronájem historické vily na Praze 1 - Hradčany, Praha 1
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Even Prague participates
Open House Prague will participate on the program with a video broadcast at the very end of the festival, on Sunday November 15th from 11 pm. It will present three iconic buildings in Prague reflecting the history of the Czech modern state. The Church of the Most Sacred Heart of Our Lord, a timeless building from the 1930s, represents the period of the first Czechoslovak Republic. The sacral space is designed by Slovenian architect Jožo Plečnik and holds the largest glass clock in the Czech Republic.
The Prague Congress Center, a monumental palace built during socialism for the communist party's conventions, today a multifunctional building with one of the best acoustic halls in the world.
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Kongresové centrumSource: archiv KCP
And also the Dancing House, probably the most famous Czech modern building, that became a symbol of the rebirth of the post-revolutionary democratic era.
Adam Gebrian, a Czech architect and popularizer of architecture, will be a guide on the journey to discover Prague's architectural gems. The video will be presented in Czech with English subtitles and will also be interpreted for deaf viewers into the international sign system.
