Emmett Scanlon, Director of the Irish Architecture Foundation, gives some tips on this year's Open House Dublin festival programme, which presents stories of lives lived in the company of buildings.
An architecture festival is built on stories, which in their telling serve to bind people and place. Dublin is a city of stories. Stories are part of who we are and what Dublin is, was and might become.
Open House Dublin, the flagship festival of the Irish Architecture Foundation and Ireland's largest architecture festival, is dedicated to telling the stories of over 1.5 million lives lived in the company of buildings and the built environment.
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Watch: Site Specific - a short documentary on Dolphin House, for Open House Dublin
This year, Open House Dublin, is, for the first time in its 18-year history presenting stories from all four counties - Dublin, Fingal, Dún-Laoghaire Rathdown and South Dublin.
Bigger than ever
This year Open House Dublin runs for a record nine days, providing even more opportunities for people to get out and explore their local area or visit another part of Dublin that ignites their curiosity. With the favourites of tours and building visits and an expanded programme of talks, workshops, films and exhibitions, Open House Dublin will excite audiences who have a desire to engage with architecture and the built environment.
The festival begins with Open House Junior on the 7th and 8th of October. This weekend is for children to explore, draw, design and imagine the Dublin of today and tomorrow. Highlights include an exhibition of children’s ideas to reimagine the Iveagh Markets and a whole range of Arkitreks, including a new trail in South Dublin, where children can use the worksheets provided to go on an architecture-trek and discover hidden treasures in their local area.
Dublin, a city with feelings
The expanded Open House Dublin festival gives more time for sharing and listening to stories about the lives we all live in the company of buildings. The Open Table series of conversations run each day from 9-13 October. With an expert-host leading a conversation with a small group over lunch, issues of today’s Dublin, such as ageing, justice, climate, housing, and play, are discussed to consider the Dublin of tomorrow. A festival highlight is the New Now Next talk with 'architecture poet-Laureate’ Rhael ‘LionHeart’ Cape and Malmö City Architect Finn Williams who will discuss the idea that ‘Cities Have Feelings’. Taking place at the Lighthouse Cinema in Dublin 7 on 14th October, the event boasts an Irish premiere of a new film by ‘LionHeart’.
House, housing and home
House and home are issues close to all hearts. Open House Dublin invites audiences to debate what can be done better, but we also champion great examples of architect-designed housing and houses. Festival goers can go on tours of Housing at the Heart of Dublin City, to workshops on the future of queer housing, to exhibitions on the past and present of Magdalene Laundries or new architectural ideas for ageing-at-home in the community, combined with many opportunities to visit great housing and houses by some of Ireland's best architects.
Something for everyone
The expanded festival closes with an unprecedented array of tours, exhibitions, podcasts and visits to public institutions and private homes, across a packed 14th and 15th October. These include an exciting new building and walking tour of Tallaght’s civic core, South Dublin. And while you are waiting for the festival to begin, you can watch the Site Specific series of short documentary films showing Dublin as you have never seen it before or listen to a specially selected series of podcasts about Dublin from the popular series, What Buildings Do, available now on the openhousedublin.com website.
Open House Dublin is taking place 7th to 15th October. All events are free, with many requiring pre-booking at the Open House website, where the programme is available to view.
