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Open House, London

Almost two decades after it began, Open House has expanded worldwide.

LONDON (UK) - For nearly twenty years, Open House London has been organized annually on the same weekend. This past September, almost seven hundred buildings in Greater London were opened. Popular this year was the City Hall, the Lloyds Building and especially the nearby so-called 'Gherkin Tower' by Norman Foster. But the special feature of the weekend is that much less well-known buildings and private homes also open their doors on these days. The difference with the annual European Heritage Days is that the buildings do not necessarily have to be old. Premiering this year was a popular iPhone application allowing users to instantly see which buildings in their vicinity were open at that moment.

Since 2002, the organization has also helped with setting up open house weekends worldwide. There are now eleven cities that have adopted the concept. For instance, more than 100,000 people attended the day in Melbourne (Australia) this year. Besides the eleven cities, there is also a country that participates in its entirety. Slovenia, with a total of only two million inhabitants, decided to open buildings not only in the capital, Ljubljana, but also throughout the country.

For anyone who still has the opportunity to travel this year, Barcelona opens a total of 150 buildings the weekend of 22-23 October 2011. If you do not happen to get there, then Rome's turn is next, in spring 2012.