<translation>Retrospective on Open House Brno 2025</translation>

This year's Open House Brno surpassed last year's numbers by nearly half, with Brno's buildings recording over 46 thousand visits

Extra tours, meetings of experts and the general public from more than seven countries, as well as suggestions for further improvement of the festival's website – all this was brought by the eighth edition of the architecture and urbanism festival Open House Brno. According to the organizers, this year's edition boasts around 46 thousand visits to buildings and guided tours. In eight years, that amounts to over 175 thousand visits across a total of 317 open buildings. The highest interest was traditionally in the tour of the Constitutional Court, AZ Tower, and the New Zbrojovka. Trained volunteers also assisted with a survey among visitors to determine what specifically the festival brings to Brno and how to further improve the festival's production. Next year's Open House Brno and the consortium of sixteen Open House Europe festivals will focus on urban and architectural transformations.

"I want to thank all the festival visitors and the hundreds of volunteers without whom our festival could not exist. To give a better idea of the attendance, I would mention that, for example, the New Zbrojovka recorded approximately 3,700 visits, the BVV Exhibition Centre and the University Hospital of St. Anna nearly 2,000 visits, and the Avion Hotel almost 1,500 visits. The public's interest and the willingness of people to donate their free time motivate us to innovate the program and seek further forms of the festival program while continuously improving the website and the organization of the festival. We received very positive feedback on intergenerational tours, where reminiscents shared experiences of now non-existent places with the younger generation, which came to see the completely transformed parts of the city. I view the festival as a way to bring generations closer together, and I am very pleased that Open House Brno is succeeding in fulfilling this goal,” evaluates this year's edition the festival's creative director Lucie Pešl Šilerová from the Kultura & Management Association.

This year's edition offered a total of 118 locations, of which 36 were included in the curatorial concept Future Heritage in various ways. People booked access to the most sought-after places with necessary reservations within seconds, with reservations needed for a total of 47 locations. In some cases, it was possible to additionally increase the capacity, and further entries were again booked out hopelessly. This was the case for, for example, AZ Tower and Tesař's Villa. A total of 71 locations were accessible without reservations. The festival also featured twenty-four accompanying events such as workshops, lectures, exhibitions, and music performances. Participants of the weekend event can evaluate the entire course of the festival in online questionnaires.

“The festival could not take place without the volunteers and the willingness of the owners of the individual sites. One of the largest owners is the Statutory City of Brno and the institutions owned or managed by it, so we are grateful to the city for its financial and organizational support and cooperation and to Mayor Markéta Vaňková for the patronage she provided to this year's edition. We also thank the South Moravian Region and Governor Jan Grolich, who also took patronage over the festival. We would like to thank CTP and the catering businesses that enhanced our visitors' festival experience with discounts. We appreciate the two dozen foreign volunteers from festivals in Athens, Rome, Thessaloniki, Vienna, Zagreb, and other places in Slovenia. We are pleased to be a founding member of the Open House Europe project, now with 16 cities involved in the consortium supported by a grant from the European Commission this year, as sharing experiences is another step towards improving Open House Brno,” thanks the festival's spokesperson Vratislav Vozník to the partners.