A festival without music may not sound much like a festival, but a new offering focusing on Cincinnati architecture may make you reexamine the way you look at the city.
ArchiNati is a weeklong tour of Cincinnati that includes walking tours and excursions to specific sites and film screenings. But this architecturally focused festival isn’t for architects, it’s geared toward giving all citizens new insights into the buildings around them.
“We tried to find places that would spark an interest in architecture for people,” says Mercedeh Namei, co-director of ArchiNati.
Organized by the Young Architect’s and Intern’s Forum, the young professional committee of the Cincinnati Chapter of the AIA, festival planners hope to form a critical mass of people for the tours.
“We want to increase awareness in the general public,” says John Back, co-director of ArchiNati. “We want people to come and say, ‘Wow, there are incredible places in Cincinnati.’ ”
Modeled after Open House New York, the tour will take visitors from Brazee Street Studio, a sustainable art studio in Oakley, to the High Steel Tour at Union Terminal. Both old and new will be featured with a specific goal of spotlighting spaces the public may not know about. At the end of the week, several offices in the Eight Street Design District will open their doors so visitors can see exactly what architects and designers do.
While many of the ArchiNati tours are free, specific ones like the High Steel Tour do have a fee, but organizers insist the trip is worth the cost. Union Terminal tourists will climb 300 stairs and ladders to the steel trusses which support one of the largest half domes in the world.
The fee isn’t intended to make a profit for the festival; the only goal is to promote Cincinnati. “People leave, but what some leave behind is architecture,” Namei says. “We can save it and teach people about good architecture.”
By Evan Wallis
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