Buildings opened during Open House Prague welcomed nearly 48,000 visits

Invalidovna

A total of 47,784 visits were recorded over the recently passed weekend for 51 interesting, normally inaccessible buildings opened to the public by the Open House Prague 2016 festival. The greatest interest among festival participants was in the Invalidovna, which was visited by 3,500 people over the two days. A big thank you goes to the staff of the Office for Representing the State in Property Matters, who called in reinforcements to guide six guides at the Invalidovna on Saturday.

Another building that attracted large crowds was the Petschek Palace. Over the weekend, it was visited by 2,780 people. Employees of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic, which manages the building, distributed free hot tea to people waiting in line on the street in the cold weather on Sunday. A surprise of the year was the Holešovice Port X, which was already accessible last year through Open House. However, this year the modern building on the Vltava attracted an incredible 2,400 visitors.

Traditionally, there was enormous interest in the Kramář Villa. It was open only on Saturday and was seen by 1,527 people. Successful were also the residential buildings U Zlatého rohu and U Kamenného zvonu, each welcoming over 2,000 people. A highlight of the year was the shelter KO17 under the Thomayer Hospital, for which advance registration was required for tours. Registrations for the tours were filled within the first two minutes after they opened.

Maximum capacity was also reached at the Residence of the Mayor of the City of Prague, the Glass Palace in Bubenč, and the headquarters of Microsoft, where group tours were booked half a day in advance. The attendance of the 2nd year again exceeded the expectations of the organizers, being 10,000 visits higher than last year.

“Open House is a festival focused on awakening the interest of residents in their city, its architecture, and the perception of the quality of the physical environment. We are also very happy that people from other cities in the Czech Republic came to Prague because of this festival,” said the executive producer of Open House Prague, Andrea Šenkyříková.

Open House originated in London in 1992 with the aim of giving the general public the opportunity to visit buildings that are normally inaccessible. The concept was so successful that it gradually expanded to thirty world capitals. In 2015, Prague also joined the Open House family. Last year's first edition in Prague recorded over 38,500 visits across 33 open buildings.

Open House Prague 2016 was held under the auspices of the Mayor of the City of Prague, Adriana Krnáčová, the director of the Institute of Planning and Development of the City of Prague, Petr Hlaváček, and the mayors of the municipal districts of Prague 1 to 9, where the opened buildings are located this year. We thank all the partners, building owners, and volunteers for their support of the festival and their great work!