European cities for architecture lovers

Reading a city through its buildings

Architecture tells the story of a city: its periods of wealth, its disasters and recoveries, its ambitions and tastes. For travellers who love buildings, Europe is an endless source of inspiration, with centuries of styles layered side by side.

Choosing a city for its architecture gives a trip a natural structure. You can follow a single style or trace how a city grew from its medieval core to its modern edges.

Prague and Vienna

Prague escaped heavy damage in the twentieth century and preserves an astonishing range of styles: Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, baroque, art nouveau and even cubist buildings, a rare style found here more than anywhere else. A walk from the castle down to the old town is a lesson in architectural history.

Vienna is the capital of imperial grandeur, with its ring boulevard lined with monumental public buildings. It is also a key city for the Secession movement and early modernism, with buildings that broke with the past around 1900.

Barcelona and Lisbon

Barcelona's Modernisme is world-famous, but the city also has a superb Gothic quarter and a grid plan from the nineteenth century that remains a model of urban design. Contemporary architecture adds new layers along the waterfront.

Lisbon was largely rebuilt after a devastating earthquake in the eighteenth century, giving its lower town an orderly grid. The city is also known for its decorative tiled facades and an ornate late Gothic style linked to the age of maritime exploration, best seen in the monastery at Belém.

Berlin, Amsterdam and Rome

Berlin is a showcase of twentieth-century and contemporary architecture, from pre-war modernism to bold new museums, government buildings and memorials. Amsterdam's canal houses, with their narrow gabled facades, are a much-loved example of domestic architecture, while the city also has fine examples of early twentieth-century brick design.

Rome spans more than two millennia, from ancient temples and amphitheatres to Renaissance palaces and baroque churches and fountains.

Making the most of an architecture trip

Walking tours led by specialists can reveal details you'd miss on your own, and many cities run open house events where private buildings welcome the public. Look up, carry a small guidebook and take time to sit in squares and admire facades as the light changes.

Madrid, Munich, Hamburg and Athens all deserve a place on the list too. Hamburg's red-brick warehouse district and striking concert hall on the harbour are highlights, while Athens offers the ancient Acropolis alongside neoclassical buildings from the nineteenth century.

← Back to all articles