Open House Festival, London’s annual celebration of notable buildings and communities, has launched a new curatorial strategy to mark its 30th anniversary. 

Organised by Open City, a charity dedicated to making London more open, accessible and equitable, it has welcomed close to 8 million visitors since it began in 1992. 

This year's festival was launched on Thursday, 8 September and will run for two weeks until Wednesday, 21 September, and focuses on nine London neighbourhoods: Aldgate, East Ham, Greenwich Peninsula, South Tottenham, Somers Town, Battersea, Walworth and Shepherds Bush and Cambridge Heath. 

Throughout the festival, visitors are invited to explore a variety of architectural styles and buildings. In addition to community tours and activities, this year will see celebrity guest curators, a book exploring migration and food in London, and new buildings and landscapes. 

A new collaboration with the UK's biggest property website Rightmove will create free public tours of homes throughout the capital, from Modernist flats to Georgian townhouses. This partnership promotes domestic architecture by opening up London's neighbourhoods, helping communities celebrate their corner of the city, and allowing people to access and explore whole areas.

The new Open House Festival chief curator Zoë Cave said: "London is a city of many neighbourhoods – unique areas each with their own characters and architecture that barrel into one another, changing, evolving and overlapping. The Open House Festival’s new curatorial strategy puts neighbourhoods at the heart of how we explore and celebrate London."

Sarah Brown, Head of Brand at Rightmove said: "Rightmove is the perfect place to discover homes in new areas you might want to live in. And Open House Festival is a unique opportunity to visit some of those areas first-hand. We know it's the people who live in London's neighbourhoods that make them such great places to live. At the festival, you’ll be able to see how local communities in these vibrant places work together, as entire streets and estates open up across the capital.

"As part of the online festival programme, we’ll be sharing Rightmove’s unrivalled expert insights to create unique guides, spotlighting a few London neighbourhoods and supplementing the Open House Festival Guidebook. So you'll be able to discover everything you need to know about an area before you head to the festival. Find out about local house prices, schools and transport links, and explore some of the great homes you can buy and rent in each area. And we'll be sharing insider tips on where the locals love to eat, drink and shop, too."

Top image: View from World's End Housing Estate. Image © Phineas Harper, courtesy of Open City.

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