• It’s Open House London weekend and that means your chance to explore behind what are normally closed doors. More than 800 buildings are opening up to the public over the two day festival – this year’s theme is ‘social’ – and there’s an extensive programme of walks and architect-led tours with all events free to attend. While some buildings – like Number 10 Downing Street, BT Tower and the US Embassy London – are only open to those who were successful in already-held public ballots, there’s still plenty to see for those who have’t scored a place. Highlights include a chance to see inside first-time participants like Millennium Mills in Royal Docks (pictured above), the new Museum of London in West Smithfield and the new social housing estate, Kings Crescent Estate in Hackney, as well as a Tokyo Bike cycle tour, and By Beck Road 19 – a Bethnal Green terrace serving as an open-door art gallery. There’s also the chance to see inspiring residences like Open Practice Architecture’s Gin Distillery and Nimtim Architect’s Block House, family activities and the Open House ‘Elements’ photography competition to take part it. For the full programme of events, head to www.openhouselondon.org.uk.

• Images of London’s street food and hawkers, spanning the 16th to the 19th centuries, have gone on show at a new open-air exhibition in Aldgate Square. Hot Peascods! explores how selling food, which could require little more investment than buying basket and the first batch of pies or eels or gingerbread, provided an income for those who couldn’t find other work and was relied upon as a source of food for those who were so poor they couldn’t afford cooking facilities at home. As well as images, it features interviews recorded in the 1850s by pioneering social reformer Henry Mayhew. The exhibition, which is curated by the City of London Corporation’s Guildhall Library, can be seen in Aldgate Square until 29th September and then moves to Guildhall Yard where it can be seen between 1st and 16th October. Free.

• The work of acclaimed British sculptor Antony Gormley is the subject of a new exhibition opening at the Royal Academy of Arts on Saturday. Antony Gormley, which spans all 13 rooms in the RA’s Main Galleries, brings together both existing and specially conceived new works. They include Iron Baby (1999) located in the Annenberg Courtyard, works from the 70s and 80s like Land, Sea and Air (1977-79) and Fruits of the Earth (1978-79) in which natural and man-made objects are wrapped in lead (these evolved into Gormley’s ‘body case’ sculptures), and a series of concrete works from the 1990s including Flesh (1990). There are a series of whole-of-room installations including Lost Horizon I (2008) which features 24 cast-iron figures, and Host in which an entire gallery is filled, to a depth of 23 centimetres, with seawater and clay, while at the centre of the exhibition are two of Gormley’s early ‘expansion’ works, Body and Fruit, both from 1991-3. The exhibition also includes a selection of works on paper including Mould (1981), the Body and Light drawings, Linseed Oil Works (1985-1990), Double Moment (1987), and the Red Earth drawings (1987-1998). Runs until 3rd December. Admission charge applies. For more, see www.royalacademy.org.uk.

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