During a single weekend, the 48h Open House BCN Festival mobilizes more than 75,000 people who have the opportunity to learn what goes on behind the facades of the city's buildings. It's not just about opening doors, it's the opportunity to teach how architecture is developed and to enjoy the city in an original way.
Local
Spain
Barcelona, L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Sant Joan Despí, Santa Coloma de Gramenet, Badalona, Vilassar de Dalt, Sitges.
Mainly urban
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
2022-10-23
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Associació 48H Open House Barcelona Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Ana M. Last name of representative: Alvarez Gender: Female Nationality: Spain Function: Communications Manager Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Rambla de Catalunya, 87, 1r D Town: Barcelona Postal code: 08008 Country: Spain Direct Tel:+34 658544792 E-mail:am.alvarez@openhousebarcelona.org Website:https://www.48hopenhousebarcelona.org/
URL:https://www.instagram.com/48hopenhousebcn/ Social media handle and associated hashtag(s): @48hOpenHouseBCN, #openhousebcn, #openhousebarcelona, #48hopenhousebcn, #OHB, #arquitectura, #architecture, #cultura
URL:https://twitter.com/48hOpenHouseBcn Social media handle and associated hashtag(s): @48hOpenHouseBCN, #openhousebcn, #openhousebarcelona, #48hopenhousebcn, #OHB, #arquitectura, #cultura, #architecture
URL:https://www.facebook.com/48HOpenHouseBarcelona Social media handle and associated hashtag(s): @48hOpenHouseBarcelona, #openhousebcn, #openhousebarcelona, #48hopenhousebcn, #OHB, #arquitectura, #architecture, #cultura
URL:https://www.linkedin.com/company/48h-open-house-barcelona Social media handle and associated hashtag(s): @48hOpenHouseBarcelona, #openhousebcn, #openhousebarcelona, #48hopenhousebcn, #OHB, #arquitectura, #architecture, #cultura
URL:https://www.tiktok.com/@48hopenhousebarcelona Social media handle and associated hashtag(s): @48hOpenHouseBarcelona, #openhousebcn, #openhousebarcelona, #48hopenhousebcn, #arquitectura, #barcelona, #cultura
48h Open House Barcelona is a non-profit cultural association that works to disseminate the architectural heritage of Barcelona and its metropolitan area. Its aim is to promote architecture and help understanding it as an essential component of culture. The main disseminating action is the 48h Open House BCN architecture festival, which brings the public closer to the architecture of the city and gives visibility to the figure of architects.
The festival is free and takes place one weekend a year in October. With the aim of making the territory known in a sustainable way, the festival programme is decentralised and spread around different districts of Barcelona and other cities of the metropolitan area.
During 13 editions (2010 – 2022), the festival has accumulated 701,800 visits and carried out 2,560 activities, thanks to the collaboration of 12,140 volunteers, more than 600 professional guided tours visits (done by architects) and the support of more than 80 different entities and companies in each edition.
Since 2020, to spread knowledge of architecture and urbanism throughout the year, the association has created the Radiomedia Architecture website, which includes more than 70 podcasts explained by architects and volunteers, more than 40 interviews with architects, and 360º videos of buildings.
The association is part of the international network openhouseworldwide.org, which was born in 1992 with the celebration of the Open House London festival. Today, 54 cities around the world are part of this organisation, an international association with local spirit.
CITY: Do a different and creative cultural action in recognition of the city and its citizens
IDENTITY: Promoting the cultural and recreational use of urban space throughout an event that promotes personal and collective identity
CULTURE: Spread architectural culture and its social and cultural side
DISSEMINATE: Promote responsible knowledge of heritage and the search for new references
PARTICIPATION AND COMMUNITY: Promote citizen participation and volunteering in the city and metropolitan area, both by students and professionals
We are very aware of reducing our impact on Earth and improving the quality of life of all human beings. The organization is a paperless office that disseminates its activities through digital media (social networks, digital press, newsletter and mailing, amongst others). Also, the festival programme is designed to emphasize the urban concept of the 15-minute city: The activities are grouped in zones promoting sustainable mobility.
In 2014, the Open Green section was created. This section highlights urban interventions and buildings designed with environmental, energy, social and economic sustainability criteria. For example, we have explained urban actions like super-blocks (developed in Barcelona by the city council), some buildings designed with environmental sustainability criteria, and carried out bicycle tours. In addition, during the festival, professionals and experts in the subject have directly transmitted their knowledge to the public. Regarding local actions, the association promotes the conservation and preservation of heritage, which is the cornerstone of sustainability: If we succeed in loving our surroundings, we will take care of it, repair it, and not produce it again.
Concerned with international actions, in 2020, we participated in the first edition of the Open House Worldwide festival. We relayed a debate between different agents from the city who explained the sustainable mobility actions applied in Barcelona and the metropolitan area.
The 48h Open House BCN festival is an exemplary project because it disseminates sustainable technician concepts using bearable support to a large and transversal audience — increasing through a digital ecosystem. The association is worried about designing a decentralized programme and giving the same importance to the emblematic buildings of the city as to the architectural interventions of proximity. Thanks to the festival, technician knowledge is transmitted so citizens can introduce it to their daily lives.
The 48h Open House BCN festival contributes to improving the quality of people’s lives by enhancing their closest habitat knowledge. The festival reinforces the feeling of belonging to a place and a community through knowledge of local heritage and through exchanging experiences among the audience (it offers the citizens a space for human connections). The festival generates quality experiences for the audience by offering tours of the buildings (highlighting the qualities of architecture) and promoting the exchange of knowledge between technicians, users, and citizens. Consequently, the project creates community through understanding and acknowledging local heritage, and contributes to creating historical and collective memory.
We like to say that the 48h Open House BCN festival contributes to demonetising architecture by valuing it as a cultural fact. This cultural knowledge generates positive emotions in the public, and contributes to building a fairer and more equal city.
The association is committed to constructing a fair society model that links all citizens and generates natural support to cover the needs of all the inhabitants. In the short run, our objectives are to offer inclusive programming that does not discriminate because of people's disabilities, to spread architecture built in the key to diversity, and to normalise and give visibility to society's diversity by getting vulnerable or disabled people to participate in the festival. In the long run, we are working on increasing the number of architectural cultural activities for people with disabilities and setting up a heritage catalogue of the metropolitan area of Barcelona accessible to everyone.
In terms of communication and dissemination, since 2016, a section called Open Social has been created for the festival. This section highlights integration and participation in urban actions that are designed to respond to the challenges of social inclusion. It also underlines cooperative architecture, the one promoted by proactive citizens that move society away from individualism.
To normalise and give visibility to diversity, we take actions to encourage the participation of the public with disabilities in the festival. On the one hand, public inclusion activities are planned (an accessibility map of the tours and sign-language tours for people with functional diversity are offered to the public). On the other hand, user inclusion activities are carried out. For instance, we designed an activity called GRAN OPEN EXTRA in which a group of elder people explained the architecture of their homes -- designed by the public administration -- thus promoting a debate around housing and active ageing issues.
The 48h Open House BCN social inclusion project is the pioneer in disseminating architectural culture to people with disabilities in Barcelona. We collaborate with different entities that work with groups at risk of exclusion and we offer accessible technical quality knowledge.
The 48h Open House BCN festival is a transversal project that involves different agents of the city and the metropolitan area at all levels. One of the most important is the audience: the festival is designed for them, and they make it possible by volunteering.
The festival’s public has a very transversal profile (it is a free and decentralised event) and has demonstrated its interest in the architecture heritage year after year (701,800 visits in 13 editions). The inhabitants of Barcelona’s metropolitan area represent an important part of the festival's volunteer team (adding to owners and users of the buildings, architects, and architecture students). In 13 editions, the festival has had more than 100,000 volunteers between the ages of 16 and 80.
Summarising: During the programming process, citizens propose spaces they would like to visit. They facilitate access to some private spaces to be included in the program (very local contributions that would be difficult for the organisation to access without their contribution). They make the festival possible by getting involved as volunteers. And they actively participate in the tours sharing their knowledge.
The participation of many agents, most of them local, is essential to make the 48h Open House BCN festival possible.
At the local level, inhabitants propose spaces which are normally part of their daily life and which would be difficult for the association to access without their collaboration. Local entities make programming proposals, provide specific knowledge about parts of the city, facilitate access to its heritage, and participate actively and voluntarily in the execution of the event. Professional associations spread the word among their members to involve them in the festival. Technicians voluntarily contribute as specialists providing information to the association and guiding tours during the event. Local and metropolitan public administrations report on new urban and architectural actions and help us to involve in current topics around the city. Private companies share their heritage and give quality content to the programme.
At the state level, heritage documents are shared with the Urbanism ministry. On an international scale, the project is part of the Open House Worldwide, an international network that provides a meeting point for the different festivals that take place around the world.
All agents spread the word about the event and some of them make financial contributions to develop it.
All contributions are of great value and all recommendations provide different significance to the event. Thanks to collaborators, improvements are made in the programme. Quality documentation about the heritage (specific, technical, and updated knowledge) can be disseminated to citizens. Access to heritage is provided. And the event gains visibility. Beyond the tangible values, each of the agents with whom we collaborate conveys the value of respect and esteem for heritage.
The 48h Open House Barcelona association team is as transversal as the agents needed to make the festival a reality. The following disciplines are involved in the design process: Architects (programming team, documentation, contents and accessibility design of the festival). Marketing and communication specialists (to inform the public through the campaign’s design, calling for participation, volunteering, and communication on social networks). Graphic designers (creating a unique graphic image for every year, adapted to the highlighted theme of each edition; and designing guides and maps of the festival). Public relations professionals (press contact). Web managers, photographers, administration managers and art directors.
The implementation process mainly involves a team of coordinators: Architecture students or recently graduated architects who coordinate areas of the city, ensuring the smooth functioning of the festival; and volunteers: Inhabitants, architecture students, and architects to explain the buildings; photographers to capture the festival’s spirit; entrepreneurs to show their heritage. Occasionally, we collaborate with experts from other disciplines to carry out specific activities: Social educators for social inclusion activities; sign language experts; or musicians.
The 48h Open House BCN festival’s team is a network in which all disciplines interact with each other, bringing coherence and content to the project: Graphic designers work together with the programming team to highlight the main topics in each edition. The documentation team work together with programming and communication specialists to adapt content for different media. Also, priorities are agreed upon in each area to develop a website that covers different needs. In addition, the team organization favours that volunteers can gradually be part of it, as volunteers become coordinators or coordinators become programming managers.
The 48h Open House BCN architecture festival brings a sense of belonging to Barcelona through the knowledge of the city and its architecture: We often remember childhood through places we lived in (landscapes and inhabited houses) and remember events and people in shared places and spaces. Knowing architecture helps us to remember, to have memory, and memory is identity.
Architecture, beyond the material aspect, helps to define memories (life and human situations that we have lived). The festival, then, stimulates citizens’ recollection by explaining portions of the city (specific buildings, theme tours, etc.). Citizens (direct beneficiaries of the event) share lived experiences. Owners, the public administration and entities (indirect beneficiaries of the project) share heritage and knowledge with the public.
The festival gives value to the spaces inhabited in citizen’s daily life. It creates a community by working in a transversal way and bringing different agents into contact. And it gives visibility to diversity by explaining the architecture that supports it. The place we live in is explained from the place itself, from the material aspect: Citizens then are sensitized by protecting their memories and it helps to strengthen the relationship of belonging to the city.
Focused on the dissemination of architectural heritage, the 48h Open House BCN festival is the city's event that mobilises more public and more volunteers in Barcelona: In the last edition, 75.000 people visited spaces and buildings in 2 days, and almost 1.000 volunteers participated.
The 48h Open House BCN festival is an innovative project in different aspects. First, because it is an event about architecture aimed at citizens. In general, big events are about music or sports, and this festival is about architecture. We believe opting for the architecture-themed festival format is innovative. Secondly, the festival claims that architecture is culture by showing, based on the architectural experience, the history, the collective memory, and the identity of the place. The festival brings the public closer to architecture with the support of the city itself, and architecture is explained through the experience (not through plans or images). Finally, the festival creates community as it is a transversal festival where different agents in the city make it come true (citizens and volunteers, public administration, private organisations, and architecture professionals, among others). This transversality favours the event's festive nature and takes advantage of synergies to help citizens to increase the feeling of belonging to the city. By bringing inhabitants and diverse professionals together, we create a community to exchange knowledge, ideas and needs between those agents. This strong transdisciplinary approach attempts to break boundaries and articulate design and architecture in a more comprehensive and participatory way. We believe the festival improves citizens’ lives.
To organise the 48h Open House BCN festival, programming, marketing and communication, volunteering and coordination teams work in a network.
The programming team works in different stages: 1) The information phase, where different agents are contacted to collect updated information. 2) The proposal and selection of contents phase, when considering the quality of the spaces, the proximity between them, or the availability. And 3) The documentation phase, regarding the recollection of information by contacting architects, photographers, archives, public administration, and owners.
The marketing and communication team is responsible for preparing the necessary documentation to inform and announce the different activities of the festival. In addition, it is in charge of contacting and searching for sponsors. The team builds appealing campaigns to draw the attention of both volunteers and the public and updates the festival website and social networks. Graphic designers, press officers and community managers work in this team.
The volunteering team oversees the volunteering campaigns and their training by creating digital support and face-to-face sessions. To coordinate the event, the territory is divided into ten work zones and each zone is assigned to a coordinator. Volunteers are assigned to each activity and previous visits are organised with the assistance of owners and architects. This first visit is the last and more important training activity organised for the volunteers, as it is where architects transmit the project's main ideas to the volunteers and where the operation of the tours is decided (such as route, accessibility, people per group, or duration).
Once the festival finishes, the organisation carries out a follow-up and evaluates it by analysing public surveys, improvement proposals from different agents and archiving the information in the association's database.
The 48h Open House BCN festival is part of the Open House Worldwide international network, which includes 54 cities around the world. In 2019, almost 1 million people participated in Open House events globally, with nearly 2 million visits to buildings enabled by 18,000 volunteers. Different face-to-face meetings have been celebrated with the international network, as well as online meetings to exchange work methodologies and ideas. In 2020 and 2022 two virtual festivals took place.
For the 2020 international festival, 48h Open House Barcelona recorded a debate between diverse local agents called “New challenges with urban mobility: Adapting Cerda’s plan to the 21st century”. In addition, a summary of the activity GRAN OPEN EXTRA (in which elder people explain to citizens the architecture of their public development homes) was also recorded, and the local Housing Councilor explained Barcelona's housing policies to the international audience. Finally, a discussion on these topics took place with the cities of Vienna and Buenos Aires.
The 2022 international festival was named “Housing and the people”. A video explaining new social housing that is being constructed in the city with sea containers was recorded to introduce the current Housing Manager for the Barcelona City Council who explained Barcelona’s Council housing policies. In addition, a debate took place between the city of Barcelona and Montpellier about this topic.
Despite being an international festival, the project has a very defined local character. The implementation depends on the history and culture of each place (such as characteristic heritage or urban transformations, private or public domaining heritage, public or private funding capacities, social aspects concerning citizens, citizens’ participation in volunteering, etc.). The point is that, together, a debate around architecture and urbanism around the world is promoted.
The 48h Open House BCN festival is a local event that addresses global challenges in different ways.
First, it considers the architectural local culture to be a basic need. Consequently, a program of architecturally interesting activities is carried out within a 15-minute walking radius. This program promotes architectural knowledge at a neighbourhood level but also focuses on the global urban concept of the 15-minute city.
Secondly, each edition of the festival highlights a topic of global interest. For instance, the festival promoted topics such as "Women architects" in 2019 by giving visibility to local professional technical women and developing a positive discrimination action to contribute to making a fair society. Or "Healthy city" in 2021 when highlighting local constructive solutions to face environmental sustainability challenges of a global nature.
Thirdly, the festival has thematic communicative sections that explain global challenges and solutions using local examples. These sections are named Open Green (focused on sustainable challenges), Open Infrastructure (where mobility and metropolitan scale aspects are developed), and Open Social (which includes inclusive programming and gives visibility to the diversity of the society by showing the architecture made for them).
Finally, during the 48h Open House BCN festival, participative public competitions are held with specific themes. It is a way of disseminating architectural concepts in a fun way.
In addition, during the year, the association organises activities to explain architecture through different arts. For example, it has been explained through photography or music -- with local artists interpreting architectural concepts --, and it approaches architecture to a diverse audience.
