There's exactly one month to go until this year's London Open House event. For those who love buildings, Open House Weekend is like architectural Christmas. Hundreds and hundreds of the capital's buildings will be open to the public for free, most of them never normally accessible even at a price. Some of these buildings are small and bijou, while others are huge and iconic. And every year I, and thousands of other Londoners, join queues across the capital to try to visit as many as possible. Over the years I've visited the Olympic viewing platform, Crossness Pumping Station, the Alexandra Palace TV studios and Lloyd's of London, amongst scores of other brilliant locations. It's always both fascinating and knackering, but ultimately very rewarding.
The programme for Open House 2007 has just been released. I paid £4 to have a copy sent to my letterbox, but you can buy a pdf for £3 or try exploring the website for free. The website has improved a lot over the years, now with borough-by-borough searching and a pinpointed Google map. But it's still not easy to search the available buildings online and to pick out the jewels in the list, not unless you pay up and buy the proper catalogue. So I've had a quick look through the 72 page booklet for you, to select a few rather special buildings for which booking is required in advance. Most of the rest you can just turn up and queue for on the day, but if you don't reserve a free ticket for this lot soon then you'll never get inside. In particular, may I draw your attention to the exceptionally rare opportunity to ascend to the top of the Gherkin and to stare down on London from the 40th floor. Only 500 Londoners will get the chance, and you need to be ready on the Open House website on Friday morning (17th August) to have any hope of booking your place.
Here's a fully clickable list of pre-bookable architectural goodies...
The programme for Open House 2007 has just been released. I paid £4 to have a copy sent to my letterbox, but you can buy a pdf for £3 or try exploring the website for free. The website has improved a lot over the years, now with borough-by-borough searching and a pinpointed Google map. But it's still not easy to search the available buildings online and to pick out the jewels in the list, not unless you pay up and buy the proper catalogue. So I've had a quick look through the 72 page booklet for you, to select a few rather special buildings for which booking is required in advance. Most of the rest you can just turn up and queue for on the day, but if you don't reserve a free ticket for this lot soon then you'll never get inside. In particular, may I draw your attention to the exceptionally rare opportunity to ascend to the top of the Gherkin and to stare down on London from the 40th floor. Only 500 Londoners will get the chance, and you need to be ready on the Open House website on Friday morning (17th August) to have any hope of booking your place.
