{"id":98065,"date":"2026-08-18T12:06:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T12:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.peerspace.com\/uk\/resources\/?p=98065"},"modified":"2026-08-18T12:06:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T12:06:19","slug":"strangest-buildings-london-open-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.peerspace.com\/uk\/resources\/strangest-buildings-london-open-house\/","title":{"rendered":"London Open House Festival: The 12 Strangest Buildings You Can Get Inside This September 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Open House Festival is best known for its headline doors. 10 Downing Street. BBC Broadcasting House. The Lloyd\u2019s Building, opening up for a fortieth birthday. Those are worth the queue\u2014and they will be gone within hours of booking opening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further down the programme, past the livery halls and the architects\u2019 studios, the festival gets considerably stranger. A working power station spread over eight floors behind two listed facades in the middle of the City. A shelter beneath a suburban lawn where the bunk slats and the numbered coat hooks sit exactly where 1940 left them. An Egyptian mausoleum that moved house twice, coffins and all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is the version of Open House worth building a weekend around, and the twelve below are the oddest doors on the 2026 programme. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The festival runs from 12 to 20 September across all 33 boroughs, everything is free, and bookings for ticketed tours open at midday on 19 August. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Set an alarm!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Wapping Hydraulic Power Station: shut for a decade<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Cast <\/picture>
Source: Open House Festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last working station of its kind anywhere when it stopped pumping in 1977. Wapping Hydraulic Power Station<\/a> was built in 1890 for the London Hydraulic Power Company, and at its peak it pushed more than 33 million gallons a week through 186 miles of cast iron mains beneath the streets. That pressure turned the revolving stages at the Palladium and the Coliseum<\/a>, lifted the fire curtains at Drury Lane and swung the dock gates along the Thames. The Glass Castle Foundation is now restoring the building as 25 Wapping Wall<\/a>, a home for experimental art, so Open House lands squarely in the middle of the transition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n