City unlocked for Open House Melbourne

If you fancy spending the weekend in a Melbourne mental home, a prison, a gunpowder bunker or a sewerage pumping station, now's your chance.

Open House Melbourne, starting Saturday, features more than 200 of the city's fascinating houses and buildings, most of which are normally off limits to the public.

It's a chance to get inside some beautiful contemporary homes and historical buildings, like Jack's Magazine in Maribyrnong, an ammunitions storage facility built in 1878.

You can also get a guided tour through Melbourne CBD cathedrals, the Hawthorn Tram Depot and the Essendon Incinerator which burned household waste until 1942.

A majority of buildings are open access and self-guided but some have pre-booked tours.