The ‘Open House Brno’ festival will go ahead once again this Saturday and Sunday. The event, celebrating architecture and design, will offer tours of 118 buildings and spaces across the city, as well as concerts and workshops.
Highlights of the programme include the “Teralóna” installation in the chapel of St Anne’s University Hospital, student-led tours of schools, and walking tours led by senior citizens at locations such as Ponávka and the Brno Exhibition Centre, as well as workshops for younger visitors.
The information centre, which sells maps and festival merchandise, will be open on Saturday and Sunday at the House of the Lords of Lipé on Náměstí Svobody from 9 am to 4 pm. By purchasing selected merchandise, visitors will be supporting the festival while also receiving a ticket for Brno’s public transport.
“In this festival, we aim to provide visitors with a variety of perspectives and connections between architecture and everyday life, while also promoting intergenerational dialogue about the Moravian metropolis,” explained Lucie Pešl Šilerová, the festival’s creative director and a member of the Culture & Management Association. “We’re opening the European Visual Stories competition to a younger audience for the first time. The Diversa Quartet will perform in Villa Wittal and the former Distillery, connecting the history of these places with the present through music. Additionally, the festival will feature short clips from the Czech Television archives for the first time, presenting selected buildings in their historical context.”
All Open House Brno tours are free for visitors. This is made possible thanks to the involvement of hundreds of volunteers, the cooperation of the participating venues and the support of the festival’s partners. Most tours do not require a reservation – arriving at the meeting point on time is sufficient. Tickets for the few locations that require reservations are available on the GoOut website.
The complete programme of this year’s festival and the list of participating locations can be found on the official website and on social media (Instagram and Facebook).
Open House Brno is also one of the initiators of the Open House Europe project, which facilitates the exchange of experiences between 22 architecture and urbanism festivals across Europe, attracting international visitors to Brno. The festival is part of the Open House Worldwide network, comprising around 50 cities around the world where Open House festivals are held. These events collectively reach over two million people worldwide each year. Brno has been part of this network since 2018.
This year’s festival is held under the auspices of Jan Grolich (Governor of the South Moravian Region), Markéta Vaňková (Mayor of the City of Brno) and Barbara Maria Willi (Dean of the Faculty of Music, JAMU).
