Triennale supports Open House Maputo

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The capital of Mozambique is the second city in Africa – after Lagos, in Nigeria – to host an Open House, a festival that began in the UK and has spread around the world through the cooperation of non-profit cultural organisations to become the largest international celebration of urban landscapes.

The Triennale accepted the invitation by Joana Vilhena to be involved in the opening edition, on 29 and 30 October 2022, which also has Camões Institute’s support. In 2015, the Triennale had already experimented with taking this format to Porto, getting involved in the first two editions.

Open House Maputo, an initiative of Open House Worldwide, celebrates the diverse heritage that defines this city. The entry into the OH family attests to the country’s largest city and main cultural and economic hub’s cultural, historic and constructed richness. Its architecture reflects this, marked by the mixture of African, European and Asian influences and featuring a vast vernacular, colonial, modern and post-independence heritage.

Maputo retains Portuguese influence in many buildings still in use today, including churches, administrative buildings and private residences. The city also has paradigmatic examples of the modern period, such as tall office and service towers or colourful residential buildings. Many of these also incorporate traditional elements of this region of Africa which make Maputo a unique and vibrant city.

Despite the large number of tourists visiting Mozambique every year, this event is aimed at locals. It counted 4000 visits, 20 spaces, 150 volunteers and 20 specialists who shared their knowledge in guided tours. In parallel, two competitions for architecture students, one on photography and the other on models, involved the future generation of professionals in this festival.