Brno will join the worldwide online architecture festival for the third time. Alongside more than 50 buildings from all over the world, Open House Brno will present Tesařova vila, which has stood in Masarykova čtvrť since 1937, on 9 April at 6pm, as part of an hour-long block presented jointly with New York, entitled “Functionalism through family stories”. This year, the theme of the 12-hour online festival Open House Worldwide will be “Housing and the People”. Photo credit: Open House Brno
Brno, 7 April (BD) – “In our joint presentation with New York, we map the stories of individual families on both sides of the Atlantic and the effects of the Great Depression. In Brno, we will focus on the story of the director of Živnostenská banka, Augustin Tesař, whose descendants still live in a villa bearing his name,” explained the festival’s creative director Lucie Pešl Šilerová. Architecture historian Šárka Svobodová and representatives of Open House Brno will appear live from Tesařova vila.
Rowan Wu from Open House New York will be the presenter of the joint Brno-New York bloc. Baldizzi apartment, part of the Tenement Museum of Immigration, will be presented by Kathryn Lloyd, who plans to invite some of the descendants of those who lived in the house that now houses the museum. A link to the Youtube stream is available on the festival website.
The online festival serves as a forerunner for Open House Brno “live”, planned for the weekend of 28-29 May. “We will be happy if new applicants apply, willing to help with the organisation of this year’s event, which is provided annually exclusively by unpaid volunteers,” said Pešl Šilerová. Those interested can get in touch with organisers here.
Open House Worldwide is a network of 50 cities around the world hosting architecture festivals for the public, which are visited by hundreds of thousands of people every year. The first virtual Open House Worldwide festival was held in November 2020 as a joint response to the impact of Covid-19 on Open House festivals, which usually rely on the personal participation of those interested. The festival was visited by more than 40,000 viewers.
