The Covid-19 pandemic has changed so much for all of us around the globe. It has put our regular lives on hold, altered how we engage with and view our everyday surroundings, our homes, our working environments, our places of refuge and social interaction. Many of us have rediscovered our communities and neighbourhoods and uncovered the extraordinary in the everyday.

This extraordinary year, Open House Dublin will celebrate the resilience, exceptional potential and talent in architecture and urban design within our city and nation. Inevitably, this year’s festival will look quite different compared to previous years: the safety and wellbeing of our visitors comes first. While we hope to include some on site tours we will embrace the opportunity to reach new audiences nationally and internationally, to innovate and explore new ways of connecting and collaborating and to occupy new spaces and platforms.

In this spirit we plan to bring the city and the places that define us closer to everyone this October. We will premier Site Specific, a series of documentary shorts made by Dyehouse Films, celebrating and showcasing Dublin’s architecture with offerings by Pritzker Prize winners Shelley McNamara and Yvonne Farrell from Grafton Architects, an aerial tour of Dublin with international architect and writer Niall McCullough, and a tour of Temple Bar with journalist Frank McDonald. The annual Big Debate will also return, inviting leading experts to debate issues around well being, climate change and people centred cities. In addition, there will be self-guided tours across the city and activities for all ages marking 15 years of Open House. As always, all of our events will be completely FREE of charge.