Overview
It's that time of year again. When Melbourne throws open its doors and says, "Come and have a legal snoop around." Yep, Open House is back for 2023, and they've just released the full program: over 180 individual buildings, 12 private Melbourne homes, 23 guided walking tours, 10 exhibitions, and 26 panel discussions. It's a lot. Organisers are expecting over 70,000 punters through the gates this year.
Most of your favourite buildings are back 2023, but there are several new faces too. Gantry House in Newport. The Justin Art House Museum in Prahran. Melbourne Uni's slick new Student Precinct. Morris Moor in Moorabbin. And new social housing project, Markham Avenue.
There will also be tours of the Holocaust Museum's soon-to-be completed new interior, the new Preston Tram Depot, and the Ukrainian Catholic Church in North Melbourne.
Image: University of Melbourne
The theme for this year's event is 'Collective City', and the program curators will be exploring how Melbourne is going to cope as we expand to a projected population of 8 million by 2050. That's a lot of people for a city currently sitting at 5 million people and 38 parking spaces.
The questions for the future will be: how can we maximise our resources? How can we better share what we have? And just how early will we have to get up to get a croissant at Lune?
This year's program also includes several special events, such as the Making Home Series, Designing With Country (July 26), This Is Public, an ongoing speaker series (July 28) and the Heritage Council of Victoria's annual Heritage Address (July 31). Most of these are held at RMIT, but check the full program for all the details.
Honestly, 2023 might be the year of the walking tour. Open House is running food tours of Footscray Market, led by local foodie Joyce Watts, an architect-guided tour through Melbourne's history of apartment living (called 'Flat Life'), and an interactive walk-through of projected designs from the Future Homes project.
Special shout out to Plant Swap: an exhibition for gardening communities at the Emely Baker Centre in Fitzroy North, with plant-swap meets and several green thumb workshops.
Open House is running from July 29–30, and ticket prices vary.
Top image: Canning Street, Eve Wilson, supplied.
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