Guiding Archi­tects: Seeing the world through dif­ferent eyes

Guiding Archi­tects has been an insti­tution for 20 years when it comes to exploring cities and regions under the expert gui­dance of archi­tects and archi­tec­tural jour­na­lists. Long-time partners Anneke Bokern (Ams­terdam, Rot­terdam), Thomas Krüger (Berlin) and Bernd Nitsch (Bilbao) tell us what guests can expect and how the network works.

With the help of your team,  people can dis­cover European and worldwide metro­po­lises and their regions – in tours of varying lengths, but in our expe­rience always of high quality. What do you offer your cus­tomers?

Bernd Nitsch: As locally net­worked archi­tects, we have pre­pared a large number of  sug­ges­tions for tours of archi­tecture that is worth seeing, from which our cus­tomers can choose or combine  them­selves, ranging from modules to indi­vidual multi-day tours.

We are a very hete­ro­ge­neous network. Most of our members are based in large cities and offer tours to their cities and sur­rounding areas. But there are also some partners who represent a whole region – in my case Bilbao and the entire Basque Country.

You have been offering this pro­gramme for quite some time now…what is the key to your success?

Thomas Krüger: I think what unites us is the great joy of com­mu­ni­cating the culture of archi­tecture to other people. It was cer­tainly no coin­ci­dence that in 1996 I met Hans Gei­linger, an architect who, like me, had a tea­ching back­ground and was visiting Berlin with his Swiss stu­dents at the time. We were united by this passion to help other people open their eyes, to under­stand the world through archi­tecture. At that time, a lifelong fri­endship deve­loped that ulti­m­ately formed the basis for our network. Two became four, then we were eleven and sud­denly an asso­ciation.

I like this somewhat unwieldy term of informing people about the culture of building because it encom­passes archi­tecture, urban planning, land­scape archi­tecture and engi­neering. It’s not just about buil­dings, but about the things behind them. We don’t explain boring physics of building or the science of building mate­rials, we look at the culture of building as a mirror of society.With city tours by archi­tects, we have dis­co­vered an opening and found a ste­adily growing niche. Pre­viously, such tours were often con­ducted by art his­to­rians, who usually looked back into the past. The archi­tect’s point of view, however, is based on the present – and people are inte­rested in that because everyone has to relate to archi­tecture. I think that explains the success of Guiding Archi­tects.

Has the demand changed over the years?

Anneke Bokern: Typical clients of Guiding Archi­tects have always been archi­tecture offices, archi­tects’ asso­cia­tions, project deve­lopers, cities and muni­ci­pa­lities, stu­dents, but also art asso­cia­tions and lovers of archi­tecture. That hasn’t changed much. But of course they now want to see more and more pro­jects around the theme of sus­taina­bility. Inno­vative housing is also very popular as a tour theme at various loca­tions. Here in Holland, the countries of origin of the groups have lately been changing noti­ceably. We have always had many German-speaking guests, but also many Scan­di­na­vians. More and more com­panies, however, find it unac­cep­table to fly their entire staff across Europe for a short team­building excursion. That’s why Nor­we­gians and Swedes don’t come to the Net­her­lands as often as they used to, but now our neigh­bours from the east and south visit much more often. Good inter­na­tional train con­nec­tions are worth their weight in gold!

Bernd Nitsch: Today’s world is changing rapidly and so are the topics that our cus­tomers are most inte­rested in. Inte­resting archi­tecture is usually created in a pro­gressive envi­ronment. This is espe­cially true for Bilbao, which has given itself a new “image” with its Gug­genheim Museum. The city is in a con­stant state of change, from zero to one hundred, so to speak – from 1997 onwards, Bilbao has been vir­tually overrun by tra­vellers.
Clients from the more pro­fes­sional envi­ronment often have a stra­tegic interest: They want to learn from local expe­rience. We play our part in under­standing what has been built and drawing the right con­clu­sions from it.
While the Gug­genheim has become a per­manent magnet, new places are being added all the time: Vitoria in the south of Bilbao, for example. The capital of the Spanish auto­nomous region of the Basque Country became known to a wider circle in 2012 as the “European green capital” thanks to its green stra­tegic urban policy.

How have you adapted your pro­grammes to the changes in demand?

Anneke Bokern: In addition to pro­gramme high­lights with archi­tec­tural icons, many Guiding Archi­tects now also offer tours on themes around sus­taina­bility, for example on new mobility con­cepts, water management, timber con­s­truction or trans­for­mation. This also has the advantage that we address new cus­tomer groups who might not book a classic archi­tecture tour.
We are also working on making our tours more sus­tainable. This includes, for example, offering fewer bus tours and more bike tours.

Do you also feel the effects of deve­lo­p­ments in tourism, i.e. how have guests’ expec­ta­tions changed over the years?

Anneke Bokern: An important trend is cer­tainly that in addition to “A” cities, “B” cities are also incre­asingly in demand. Of course, Berlin, Paris or New York remain classics that everyone likes to visit. But more and more groups are also drawn to Valencia, Rot­terdam or Glasgow. There are still many new things to dis­cover there, hotel prices are lower and it’s not so crowded.

Thomas Krüger: In addition to the archi­tecture tours in our cities, some of us now also offer archi­tecture tours that go further afield and these too are becoming incre­asingly popular. They are not only aimed at pro­fes­sional col­le­agues, but at everyone inte­rested in building culture.

You meet regu­larly to exchange ideas. Do you observe signi­ficant local dif­fe­rences in the interest of the guests or in inter­cul­tural com­mu­ni­cation?

Thomas Krüger: Yes, there are clear dif­fe­rences. Our Spanish or Italian partners, for example, rarely have local groups; they cater to almost 100 per cent guests from German- or English-speaking countries. There are also clear dif­fe­rences in men­tality: Scan­di­na­vians, Aus­trians, Swiss or Germans are often very wealthy, keen to travel and hungry for edu­cation, whereas Sou­thern European or Asian groups also have their own agenda but tend to pursue more tou­ristic inte­rests when tra­velling.

Anneke Bokern: At our annual meeting, the first thing we notice is how great the cul­tural dif­fe­rences are within our orga­ni­sation. More than 40 loca­tions in Europe and overseas – it’s always like a small United Nations Con­gress. Everyone com­mu­ni­cates, nego­tiates, cele­brates in their own way (grins).
But of course, dif­fe­rences in the guests’ wishes are also noti­ceable in the exchange. In some cities, the groups mainly want to see new star archi­tecture, in others more archi­tec­tural classics. In Istanbul or Santiago de Chile, for example, clients often want to book an all-inclusive package, whereas in more familiar sur­roun­dings they prefer to arrange many things them­selves.

Bernd Nitsch: It is noti­ceable that some themes, such as sus­taina­bility, are dealt with at a very dif­ferent pace depending on the country.
What’s more: As a rather “regional” member, I cannot offer certain themes from the large cities; but in Bilbao, with Rioja, there is a won­derful, rural expe­rience around archi­tecture and wine.

How does quality control actually work for you – do you validate each other?

Bernd Nitsch: Quality control is taken very seriously in the network. We invest a lot of time and energy in sel­ecting new partners. Our goal is to be able to recommend every other member of the network uncon­di­tio­nally.
To this end, we have for­mu­lated stan­dards according to which our tours should run in order to create a qua­li­tative reco­gnition value.
The exchange within the framework of our annual mee­tings and work­shops, but also the reciprocal visits help to con­stantly apply and improve these stan­dards.

Do you have any per­sonal archi­tec­tural high­lights or unfor­gettable memories from guided tours?

Thomas Krüger: For us in the Berlin team, the greatest sense of achie­vement is when we can awaken an interest in building culture among very young people – school­children, for example. They are the most dif­ficult cli­entele to “grab their attention”, because: Who in their teens is inte­rested in the culture of building and the art of archi­tecture and in groups at that? A real challenge. And the best praise when we hear after a guided tour: “I had no idea how many inte­resting aspects there could be in a single building.”
I have many per­sonal high­lights, and they change too. I have just returned from an Aalto tour in Finland and am still com­pletely enthr­alled by his town hall in Säy­natsalo, which I only knew from pic­tures. This shows once again how important the phy­sical, the haptic expe­rience of archi­tecture is. The drive to see things in the ori­ginal, to really “expe­rience” archi­tecture and to pass that on is some­thing that unites the Guiding Archi­tects.
My per­sonal favourite building in Berlin is the Baum­schu­lenweg Cre­ma­torium by Schultes and Frank Archi­tects, because it has a solemn aura with modern lan­guage that you otherwise only remember from old cathe­drals.

Bernd Nitsch: Of course you have your favou­rites on your own tours… alt­hough – for reasons of pro­fes­sional ethics alone this is clearly sub­jective. In my case, for example, among my favou­rites are the metro of Bilbao or a superbly rea­lised reno­vation plus an extension of a his­to­rical building such as the Casa del Con­destable in Pam­plona.
It is very pleasant to change sides at our network mee­tings and to be guided by col­le­agues as lis­teners – espe­cially in buil­dings that you can only get into with the right contacts.

Anneke Bokern: I’m always happy when clients want to see not only the latest high­lights but also, for example, bru­talist or struc­tu­ralist archi­tecture. Then I’m happy to go the extra mile to make it pos­sible to visit a private home, for example. My high­lights on guided tours for col­le­agues were a picnic at Antonio Bonet’s magni­ficent Casa Ricarda in Bar­celona and an exclusive visit to Pier Luigi Nervi’s empty Palazzo del Lavoro in Turin.

Guiding Archi­tects is the world’s largest inter­na­tional network of archi­tecture tour com­panies. The idea was con­ceived in 1996 by archi­tects Hans Gei­linger and Thomas Krüger who con­ducted archi­tecture tours in their home cities of Bar­celona and Berlin.
The network grew orga­ni­cally and infor­mally, before becoming an official insti­tution in 2004, with 11 founding members. Now with 38 member com­panies in 22 countries, the asso­ciation is based in Zurich and hosts about 30,000 guests per year at 42 desti­na­tions worldwide.

Interview: Ulrich Stefan Knoll, August 2023

Photo credits:
Cover photo Ysios. Foto: © cvzzn, Uns­plash
01 © Kerstin Leicht, Guiding Archi­tects München
02 Gug­genheim Museum. © Bernd Nitsch, Guiding Archi­tects Bilbao
03 Gug­genheim Museum. © Mario La Pergola / Uns­plash
04 Vitoria-Gasteiz. © David Vives / Uns­plash
05 Vitoria-Gasteiz. © Bernd Nitsch, Guiding Archi­tects Bilbao
06 Cube-houses Rot­terdam. © Anneke Bokern, architour.nl
07 Sluishuis Ams­terdam. © Anneke Bokern, architour.nl
08 Group photo Guiding Archi­tects. © Éva Fábián, Guiding Archi­tects
09 Ysios. Foto: © cvzzn, Uns­plash
10 Marqués de Riscal. © Jun Lee, Uns­plash
11 Cre­matory Berlin-Baum­schu­lenweg. © Thomas Krüger
12 Metro Bilbao, Plaza Moyua. © Bernd Nitsch, Guiding Archi­tects Bilbao
13 Palazzo del Lavoro, Turin. © Anneke Bokern, architour.nl