A first look at London Open House Festival’s 2025 programme
London’s doors are opening up this September (13 - 21) for London Open House Festival 2025. This year’s line up will be the biggest and boldest edition yet, with a diverse programme of hands-on experiences, one-of-a-kind tours, and extraordinary buildings to visit. Visitors can expect more access, more stories, and more surprises than ever before.
Capturing each corner of the capital across 33 London boroughs, the festival is set to include over 800 free open days and events to highlight landmark architectural projects, government buildings, local communities, towering skyscrapers, and the city’s most interesting homes.
The ground floor courtyard at Rana Begum’s ‘Little Citadel,’ new to the 2025 London Open House Festival programme
Art Park Harrow ©Jan Kattein Architects
Poets' Corner East Aisle, Westminster Abbey
©Dean and Chapter of Westminster
Dorwich House Museum ©Ellie Laycock
Confirmed highlights that are new to the London Open House Festival so far include:
• Incredible examples of refit and reuse, including Studio AVC’s offices, based in a historic 1929 shop which was once Liberty’s printing workshop and part of William Morris’s Arts & Crafts legacy, The King’s Foundation in Hackney, set in a refurbished factory warehouse, and London Film School, which used to be a banana warehouse!
• A peek behind the scenes of some of the leading architectural practices, including A is for Architecture, Carmody Groarke Studio, and Urbanist Architecture Studio, who join returning practices, TiggColl and Tonkin Liu’s Grade II Listed Sun Rain Rooms
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• Rana Begum’s Little Citadel – an architectural guided tour of the house referred to by the RIBA Jury as an “extraordinary house… a different experience from any before,” and by the Civic Trust Awards as “an outstanding piece of architecture”
• Several venues at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, including London Aquatic Centre, Sadler’s Wells East, a park-wide tour with Allies and Morrison, and The Loop (a circular economy hub located nearby at Hackney Wick), with more to be announced soon
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• Westminster Abbey – East End, a UNESCO World Heritage site, dating from the 11th century and including stunning examples of Gothic and Medieval architecture
• The Museum of Homelessness, which occupies a 1869 former park keepers’ lodge, created from scratch by people with experience of homelessness
• The Museum of Transology, where visitors can explore the archive of objects donated by trans, intersex, and non-binary people
• The first Lewisham self-build houses designed by Walter Segal at 11 Elstree Hill
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• The popular Golden Key Academy walking tours this year include our first tour for joggers; South of the river at speed!, Bricks of Brick Lane and Belgravia’s 200 years of glory: from swamp to splendour
• Fascinating private residences, including RIBA House of the Year 2024, Six Columns, Station Lodge, a triple-height home of exposed steel and timber, Hebron House, a Victorian home with retrofitted sustainable credentials, the Grade II listed, Modernist Pioneer Centre, Pine Heath, a 1960s house in the Hampstead conservation area, originally designed by Ted Levy, Benjamin & Partners, and the eye-catching New Fauconberg Cottage, which this year replaced a building on the tiny site of an original 1930s home
• Explore London with the locals who know it best. Airbnb Experiences offer a deeper connection to the city, from hidden histories and hands-on workshops to neighbourhood gems you’d never find on your own
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• Leadenhall Market, a covered market with roots in Roman Londinium, now home to 40 retail and restaurant brands
• Cultural hubs including Church Street Triangle, a project aimed at refurbishing unused buildings and public spaces to create a new community centre, Art Park Harrow, a community ‘anchor’ for workspaces and creative studios, Resonance FM, a non-profit community radio station in Southwark, and The Tate Institute in Newham, which also boasts a net-zero carbon, circular retrofit
Museum of Homelessness Finsbury Park
©Museum of Homelessness
Returning buildings, spaces, and experiences include some of London’s most treasured house museums, including Sir John Soane’s Museum, Dorich House Museum, and Little Holland House, inspired by the ideals of John Ruskin and William Morris, newly opened after a refurbishment project. London Open House Festival also welcomes the return of Post-War and Inter-War housing estates to the programme, including a series of six Span Estates in Black Heath, Lillington Gardens Estate, and a walking tour of Broadwater Farm Estate to see the first new council homes being built on the estate for 50 years as well as the Terrace Garden projects.
This year, London Open House Festival has a fresh panel of Guest Curators, each bringing their own perspective to the 2025 programme. Their hand-picked collections offer a curated mix of standout spaces and stories, and will be revealed on 6 August 2025. In the past, this has included Borough representatives, key opinion leaders from the architecture and design community, educators, and creatives. For 2025, the programme will include collections from Guest Curators, Justine Simons, Deputy Mayor for Culture and the Creative Industries, Claudia Kenyatta and Emma Squire, joint Chief Executives of Historic England, Jos Boys, co-Director of the DisOrdinary Project, and Sahra Hersi, artist and spatial designer.
The festival will once again run its coveted Building by Public Ballot collection, giving visitors a once-in-a-lifetime chance to step inside some of London’s most remarkable and protected buildings. The ballot system presents a free and fair way to allocate tickets to some of the most high-profile buildings in the London open House Festival programme. The Balloted Building collection and information on ballot dates will be announced in late July.
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London Open House Festival Director, Celia Mead, says: “We champion creating a London where My City is Your City, where we can share and learn from each other. The breadth of the buildings, homes, walking tours, and experiences on offer to visitors this year is a true reflection of our city, which remains one of the world’s most diverse, vibrant, and open cultural hubs. This year we have been working with young people and access specialists to develop the festival so that there is something for everyone.”
Church Street Triangle ©Jan Kattein Architects
Emmanuel Marill, Director of Europe at Airbnb, the Festival’s Headline Partner, says: “What makes London irresistible to visitors and locals alike is the wealth of experiences the city can offer. With London Open House Festival, we hope to demonstrate not only to Londoners but also to visitors that some of the city’s most important doors are open, not only to the buildings themselves but to the experiences that lie beyond.”
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Deputy Mayor Justine Simons, a Guest Curator for the 2025 Festival, says: “In big cities like London, where, despite our digital connectivity, loneliness is a real issue. Culture is bringing us together, building real life, human connections. Culture is supporting our health and wellbeing, offering our young people a positive life path and revitalising our neighbourhoods.”
Visitors should head to https://programme.openhouse.org.uk/ to see the programme preview.
The full programme and general bookings will go live on 20 August.
