5 suggestions to discover at Open House Lisboa

It is next weekend that several doors in the city will open for a new edition of Open House Lisbon. The event that every year showcases the best of the capital’s architecture is back on the 11th and 12th of May, promising, once again, to far beyond architecture. Open House is an invitation to reflect on the city, its housing, public space and how everything interacts, influencing different social dynamics. Basically, it is an invitation to stop and look at Lisbon from other perspectives.

For two days, it will be possible to visit 74 spaces in Lisbon for free, some of which are usually closed to the public, and enjoy a program that, for example, includes guided walking tours, concerts and exhibitions. As choosing can be difficult, the LPP and the Lisbon Architecture Triennale and EGEAC, which organize the Open House, have prepared a guide with five ideas for next weekend.

1. Discover the artistic culture and industrial heritage of Alvalade

Cities hide industrial pasts which João Appleton, civil engineer, specialist in building rehabilitation, promises to help discover next Saturday morning, starting at 11 am. For 90 minutes, João invites you to discover the former Lisbon Craft and Small Industry Zone, where due to its utilitarian nature, the architecture seems to have been left open.

Located between Rio de Janeiro, Brasil and Roma avenues, the lots in this block were filled, over the decades, with different buildings and different uses. To illustrate recent transformations, we visit a cultural space in an office building, formerly a trimmings factory; a digital architecture studio that was a chemical warehouse; a duplex house, previously a place for worship and a factory to be adapted for housing.

The circuit, which will start at number 10 Rua do Centro Cultural, will end in the courtyard with ateliers and galleries where there used to be car workshops and a printing press. To participate, just show up.

2. Visit the Quadrum Gallery, in Coruchéus

Still in Alvalade, next to the Biblioteca dos Coruchéus, on Rua Alberto de Oliveira, we invite you to discover Galeria Quadrum.

This modern complex features two interconnected L-shaped blocks with fifty workshops, with two and three floors on each side. Initially, the studios dedicated to artistic creation essentially included painting and ceramics, but today they also include artists from the visual arts and cinema. Quadrum arose from the vision of Dulce d’Agro, one of the most important gallerists in the country and responsible for managing this space until the mid-1990s, remembered as an important place for promoting the most diverse experimentalism, especially between 1974 and the beginning of the 1990s. 1080. Since 2010, it has been managed and programmed by Municipal Galleries, under the direction of EGEAC, maintaining the mission of disseminating contemporary art.

On Saturday and Sunday, at 3 and 4 pm, there will be guided tours. There is no need to book in advance, just show up.

3. See Bairro Alto from another perspective

Maybe you know Bairro Alto from its nightlife, but in this Open House we invite you to discover this area of ​​the city door to door and understand what happens there at other times of the day.

You will be able to enter April 25th Association, a building that began as the headquarters of the newspaper O Mundo, the first daily that reported the proclamation of the Republic, then housed Diário da Manhã, in practice an unofficial organ of the National Union, and, finally, was the headquarters of the newspaper of Estado Novo Época, unoccupied after the 25th of April. Today it houses a room for events and exhibitions on the ground floor; in the first, a restaurant; on the second, administrative services for the Association and the third floor has a library.

With its doors open, it will still be House of Common, an old dream of José Pinho, an unavoidable figure in Lisbon’s cultural life, founder of Livraria Ler Devagar, who died in 2023, and always dreamed of a place where people could enjoy leisure, be and create together. His dream now occupies a space that has already had many uses and transformations, which you can feel when walking through the interior.

You can still discover Brotéria, the Cardaes Convent, the Ministry of Environment and Energy, the Academy of Sciences, the Atelier-Museu Júlio Pomar, or the Palmela Palacewhere the Attorney General’s Office currently operates.

Some of these visits include a volunteer team dedicated to carrying out visits with audio description adapted for blind people or people with low vision.

4. Explore the public space of Telheiras Sul and visit an apartment

Did you know that the urbanization of Telheiras Sul was the response of the Lisbon Urbanization Public Company (EPUL) to the housing crisis of the 1970s? More than 3,300 houses were built for almost 15,000 middle-class people, in an area of ​​63.5 hectares.

And with that a vision of the city for Lisbon that we had already seen in neighborhoods like Alvalade was recovered. This urbanization recovered the importance of the street in the urban fabric, the buildings are organized into residential blocks and are anchored in the core of Telheiras-Velho and the life there. Inspired by the garden city, the neighborhood has a permeable network of pedestrian paths and green spaces, facilitating mobility. Housing, commerce and collective buildings combine in a harmonious relationship focused on human needs, enhanced by the community center and residents’ association.

On a walking route, architects Ana Tostões and Zara Ferreira promise to give us another perspective on the Telheiras neighborhood, particularly the South zone. This tour will also feature the presence of Manuela Oliveira, architect and ambassador for Associação Salvador, who will accompany the authors with notes on accessibility in public spaces for people with reduced mobility.

The route starts at 5 pm on Saturday, at number 8 Rua Professor Francisco Gentil. To participate, just show up.

5. Discover an architectural studio located in a modernist church

It’s unlikely that you’ve never been to the Marquês de Pombal and Picoas area, it’s even more unlikely that you’ve noticed a church that discreetly forms part of its urban fabric.

With signature of architect Nuno Teotónio Pereirarecognized with the distinguished municipal architecture prize Valmor, the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which is part of a parish complex, deserves a visit in itself and is one of the spaces that will be open at this Open House, and can be visited freely between 3 and 6 pm on Saturday and Sunday. Breaking with religious tradition, the primitive Roman church model was recovered, reinforcing the relationship between religious space and the surrounding community, taken to the limit by the stripped and urban character that the exposed concrete gives it. With a refined approach to spatiality, details and light, the Church is surprising to anyone who enters and comes across its monumental volume.

Still, This parish center does not have merely religious functions. Inside, there is a architectural studio, EMMA, which will be open for 90-minute visits throughout the weekend, between 11 am and 7 pm. Anyone who wants a more personalized visit, with the studio team, should sign up for email [email protected] and show up at 3pm on Saturday or Sunday. It is recommended that participants have a canteen with water, comfortable shoes and clothing.

If you want more ideas for things to do at Open House Lisboa, stop by here.