Open House Lisboa gives access to 73 lives of buildings in Lisbon

DFrom emptiness to ruin, Open House Lisboa explores the different lives of buildings with a program of visits to spaces, accessible sensory visits, urban routes, junior activities and city tours, among other activities.

With the theme “Matters of Time”, the event proposes “a look at the architectures that surround us as living entities, with a before and after, reflecting the different life stages of buildings: the void, the construction phase, the building inhabited and ruin”.

The program involves “expectant territories”, represented by the urban void, such as the Quarteirão de Entrecampos or the Vale de Alcântara, spaces under construction, such as the University Residences of the University of Lisbon or the Hub Criativo do Beato – Military Maintenance Workshops, and ruins , visible in the Archaeological Nucleus of the Castle of São Jorge and in the Roman Theatre.

There are also visits to palaces, spaces of worship, ateliers, schools and private homes, among others, in a selection of the Lisbon atelier Embaixada, led by Cristina de Mendonça, Nuno Griff and Paulo Albuquerque Goinhas.

The program also foresees two sensory visits, adapted for people who are blind or have low vision or with cognitive disabilities, at the Atelier-Museu Júlio Pomar (today, at 3:00 pm) and at the Lisbon Observatory (Sunday, at 3:00 pm), and includes a visit, with a Portuguese sign language interpreter for deaf people (Sunday, 11:00 am) at the Lisbon Astronomical Observatory, which has operated since 1867.

In partnership with the European Night of Museums, the program also features a night circuit that takes place today, with a visit to the Palácio Nacional da Ajuda, the National Coach Museum, the House-Museum Dr. Anastácio Gonçalves, the Costume Museum, Lx Factory, Largo Residências – Barracks of Santa Bárbara, which will be open to the public until 23:00.

Founded in 2002, the Embaixada studio integrates people from all over the world, and each work is developed as a prototype for the future.

According to the organizers, the 372 different projects that participated in Open House Lisboa over all these years, since 2012, are now gathered in a digital atlas, which can be consulted permanently.

The digital collection also includes all the spaces that can be visited this year, including the Triangular House, the Silos Ports of Beato, the Lisbon Astronomical Observatory, the Lisbon Synagogue, the Thalia Theater, the Carpentry Shops of São Lázaro, the MUDE – Museum of Design and Fashion, the Ismaili Center and the Mother of Water Reservoir.

As part of the concept of sustainability, this year’s Open House Lisboa volunteer team will also be using vests made from recyclable materials, which can be reused in future editions, in a creation by ‘designer’ Jorge Moita.

Under the same motto, Lisbon hosts, in December, the first face-to-face meeting of Open House Europe, a cooperation project funded by the Creative Europe program of the European Commission, which will have the participation of twelve European members of the international Open House network.