Open-City is delighted to announce our fantastic and free family festival programme for 2016, and more activities to come! On 23 & 24 July, the City of London’s Square Mile will be packed with architectural activities in exciting venues such as the Gherkin, 6 Bevis Marks, Broadgate and the Aldgate Area. Join us to build 4 metre lego gherkins, fly archi-kites, sketch skyscrapers and construct honeycomb homes!
Archikids Festival Call for Volunteers
Open-City is also looking for creative people to volunteer during the festival weekend. If you would like to help out at one of the festival venues please sign up through our online form here.
Check out our upcoming summer architecture tours and claim your 20% subscriber discount with our special voucher codes below.
Walking Tour - From Cathedral to Commerce: Sat 9 July 2016
Until comparatively recently St Paul’s dominated the London skyline. A renewed appetite for high-rise office blocks has seen a recent expansion in vertical towers in the City, ensuring London’s historic core is still the most architecturally dynamic of areas.
Use the code CITY at checkout for 20% off this tour.
Photography Tour - From Wren to Rogers: Saturday 9 July 2016
Explore the architecture of the City of London from Wren to Rogers with this photographic walking tour looking at how to effectively photograph the City, a hugely impressive mix of history and modernity, where new vistas are continually opening of this ever-changing cityscape.
This tour is an introductory tour led by an acclaimed architectural photographer and member of the architectural photography agency VIEW Pictures and you will discover different ways of observing and photographing the City.
Use the code PHOTO at checkout for 20% off this tour.
Walking Tour - Olympics and Beyond: Saturday 16 July 2016
The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and its Stratford environs is one of the busiest and most unusual development areas in London.
This is an opportunity to explore this rapidly changing area, in the context both of its rich industrial past, and ambitious plans for the future, which include ‘Olympicopolis’, containing new facilities for the V&A, Sadler’s Wells, London College of Fashion and University College London.
Use the code OLYMPICS at checkout for 20% off this tour.
Only a few places left on our popular King's Cross Renaissance walking tour: Saturday 16 July 2016
Use the code KINGSX at checkout for 20% off this tour.
Walking Tour - Lansbury Estate: Saturday, 16 July 2016
A walking tour around the estate built for the 1951 Festival of Britain, ending at the foot of ErnΕ Goldfinger’s Brutalist Balfron Tower. The Festival of Britain was branded a ‘Tonic to the Nation’ at a time when the promise of post-war reconstruction of east London was still to be realised.
This tour will reflect on these contrasting examples of state planning to provide homes for people, and see examples of London’s current approach to meeting London’s housing needs.
Use the code LANSBURY at checkout for 20% off this tour.
A walking tour of the King's Cross area, Europe’s largest city centre regeneration scheme. A combination of 20 historic and 30 new buildings set in new streets, squares and parks, the development is a 25 year project creating a new place and piece of city in an area once neglected.
Pre-order your copy of our new look Open House London guide for 2016
Open House London is the capital's largest architectural festival, with more than 750 buildings of all types and periods opening up their doors to all, completely free on the 17th-18th September.
Our Open House guide will be available from mid-August, but you can get ahead of the others and pre-order your guide today. We have been working hard on a brand new design for the guide this year, including more editorial content and an easier to read layout, which we will be delighted to share with you as soon as it comes back from the printers. Pre-order your copy here.
