11th Open House Prague 2025

Open House Prague 2025

The 11th Open House Prague festival took place May 12–18, 2025. On the weekend of May 17–18, the festival opened 123 usually inaccessible buildings and spaces around Prague, including 32 new buildings in the program and 49 cultural monuments. On the weekdays, the festival offered 180 events as part of the accompanying program, including debates, special guided tours with architects and experts, lectures, and exhibitions. In total, the festival welcomed over 104,000 visitors. The festival’s information center was located at Hybernská Campus, similarly to last year. Here, visitors could learn more about the program or pick up souvenirs.

New Buildings & Anniversaries

The motto of this year’s festival was Past Heritage, Future Challenges. A notable theme of this year was a series of discussions titled Schools for Future Generations, which was also reflected in the weekend program that featured a number of innovative projects of school buildings. We commemorated several railway anniversaries, e.g. the arrival of the first train to Prague at the motive power depot at Masaryk Railway Station. The program featured over 30 new buildings, including retirement homes for the first time, such as Nová slunečnice and Chodov Retirement Home, both designed by Jan Línek and Vlado Milunić, and also Palata Home. In addition, people could visit the embassy of Lithuania and Luxembourg as well as many university dormitories, such as Budeč, Jednota, or Krystal Center. The program also included areas of Prague Castle and the Drama Club designed by Milada Petříková-Pavlíková, the first female architecture graduate in Czechoslovakia.

The mysterious Faust House as wellas EGAP Palace opened as part of the festival for the first time. Dunaj Palace opened after a recent careful reconstruction. Lovers of industrial buildings appreciated the Old Wastewater Treatment Plant in Bubeneč. Popular stops also included new residential projects on the spot of former industrial premises, such as the Nusle Brewery orthe Smíchov Distillery. Visitors also flocked to the recently renovated theater Nová Spirála, the operational building of the National Theater, and Tyrš House. The program also included new administration buildings, such as Roztyly Plaza or Hagibor. Another new building in the program was Atlas Palace, which houses one of Prague’s oldest movie theaters. People could also visit several of Prague’s Sokol gyms, e.g. the oldest one in the New Town or the neo-Classical one in the district of Bubeneč.

Accompanying Program

In relation to the festival’s motto, we organized a series of debates titled Schools for Future Generaitons; the series kicked off with the debate School as a Power Plant, followed by School Through Play 5.0? and Prague Schools of Tomorrow. The railway theme was reflected in a lecture on the history of Prague railways, the exhibition Forgotten Stations, Future Journeys, and also a walking tour from the former Těšnov Station to Masaryk Station. The opening of retirement homes was preceded by a lecture on post-modern architecture. Visitors who wanted to stretch their body could join us on bike rides from Krč to Roztyly and from Zahradní Město to the Výtoň bridge. The program also included special guided tours of the buildings E Factory, Fragment, and MyMozart. In collaboration with our partners, we held the 4^th edition of the Open Prague photo contest, where competitors could win valuable prizes.

Architecture for Everyone

The Open House Prague festival typically also focuses on groups of citizens who are limited in exploring architecture due to their handicaps. In collaboration with our partners, we organized tours for people with hearing disabilities, which featured Czech Sign Language interpretation as well as simultaneous transcription, and tours for people with visual disabilities, where visitors could use tactile plans and 3D models of buildings. In total, these special tours were held at 12 buildings and attended by circa 110 visitors.

Program for Families with Children

The festival offered ten fun guided tours to families with children along with the creative Worksheets for Little Architects, which aim to disclose architectural terms and topics to children in a fun way. Similarly to the festival’s past editions, we opened a free construction workroom in collaboration with our partner Czech RepuBRICK in the festival’s information center at Hybernská Campus. Older children used white LEGO® bricks and their imagination to build buildings of various shapes and younger children could play with DUPLO bricks. Program for families with children was also available at other buildings, and visitors could also attend School of Life, an intergenerational game prepared by the students of Arts management, University of Economics in Prague.

Involvement of Volunteers

The number of volunteers involved in this year’s festival exceeded 630. The community of volunteers who take part in the Open House Prague festival has a unique and diverse composition. The volunteer teams included high school and college or university students, middle-aged people with different professions, seniors, and even entire families. New members of the volunteer teams also included two volunteers with intellectual disabilities. There is also a separate group of the so-called liaison volunteers, who lead teams of volunteers. The volunteer program’s ambassadoris Lejla Abbasová.

We would like to thank everyone who is involved in the work with volunteers and provides us with various forms of support. Most importantly, we thank the hundreds of volunteers, employees from the buildings,and passers-by who were not afraid to join us and help wherever it was needed. The selfless commitment of such a large number of people is very touching, and, above all, it’s a driving force for the entire Open House Prague festival. As a thank you, we invite our volunteers to selected buildings throughout the year as part of our volunteer program.

Open House Worldwide

Open House Prague is a proud member of Open House Worldwide, an international network of more than 60 cities on 6 continents where the Open House festivals are held. The concept of the festival originated in London in 1992 under the leadership of founder Victoria Thornton, who holds the Order of the British Empire. In 2020 and 2022, the network held collaborative online events that introduced unique architecture concepts from the member cities, including Open House Prague. Selected European cities have also come together as part of the Open House Europe project with the participation of Open House Prague as well.