Open House Miami
Feb 28, 2025 - Mar 02, 2025
Multiple event times
Discover the stories behind Greater Miami’s most iconic buildings and spaces with exclusive tours, workshops and lectures. On February 28 and March 1, the second edition of Open House Miami, presented by the Miami Center for Architecture & Design, invites attendees to explore the design, construction and cultural significance of notable landmarks across the region. The lineup of 2025 experiences will be announced soon.
Read on for details on the inaugural 2024 Open House Miami.
Go Behind-the-Scenes Throughout Greater Miami
Tours will include the vast and complex Hard Rock Stadium, the beautiful and historic Trinity Episcopal Cathedral and the technical and engineering marvel that is the Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science. The list of participants is growing daily. Attendees also will have the opportunity to meet with architects, participate in workshops and engage in meaningful conversations about Miami's future.
Tours and lectures will delve into cultures significant to our area and the places they coalesce around. For example, attendees will be able to learn about Little Havana's arts and culture through exclusive access to the beautiful grounds of the historic Koubek Center, including private spaces of the Koubek Mansion.
All of the events are free and open to anyone, although space is limited. Tickets and opportunities to volunteer are available now. A launch event, also free, will be held February 29 at Frost Science.
“People will be able to see behind the curtains, to see backstage, to get a look at how the city works,” said Irvans Augustin, executive director of Urban Impact Lab, a Miami consultancy that is helping to organize the event.
Joining an International Network
The event’s ultimate aim is to foster in everyone a deeper connection with and pride in their city. Open House Miami is the new kid on the block at Open House Worldwide, an international network of almost 60 organizations that began hosting festivals and conversations about architecture, design and cities in 1992.
In 2022, nearly 750,000 people participated in Open House festivals, with more than 2-million visits to buildings enabled by 16,000 volunteers in 50 cities, including Athens, Basel, Buenos Aires, Chicago, Copenhagen, Madrid, London, Milan, New York, Osaka, Perth, Rome, Santiago, Seoul, Seville, Stockholm, Vienna, Zagreb and Zurich. Open House Worldwide is the largest celebration of the urban landscape in the world, according to the UK-based nonprofit.
Miami’s first Open House was spearheaded by Cheryl Jacobs, executive director of the Miami Center for Architecture and Design. The MCAD board and Urban Impact Lab took on leadership roles when Jacobs was unable to continue. The effort began rebuilding the event nearly from scratch in late 2023, giving it a scant few months to prepare.
The effort has other allies, notably the American Institute of Architects, the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau and the Miami Beach Visitor and Convention Authority.
A few months is not much time to widely communicate the news of an event’s existence and its mission and sign up participating owners of structures and infrastructure.
“It doesn’t have to be perfect,” Augustin said. “The experiences we are putting together will be a really great spark, something that is the magic of these kind of events.”
Open House Miami will document and share its work, and Augustin says the event will be bigger and better in 2025 and beyond.
“It’s great that our launch event will be held at Frost Science, because this is a great experiment, and a lot of really great things come out of experiments,” he said.
By: Terry Galvin | January 31, 2024