Cultural education is en vogue these days. Many politicians and economic leaders have realised the importance of creativity for the inner cohesion and for the compatibility of modern knowledge societies. However, when talking about cultural education, architecture is still hardly mentioned.

The architects’ chambers weave a widely spread network in order to bring more architecture into schools. The architects’ chambers especially look for strategic partnerships with five social groups: firstly pupils, parents and teachers, secondly public authorities like ministries and school authorities, thirdly universities, institutes for teachers and architecture students, fourthly commerce and economy and fifthly other organisations and institutions for architecture.

The participation in overlapping initiatives has proven to be very promising as for instance the initiatives of the Länder for promoting building culture or the initiative for turning schools into all-day schools. The latter may include the mediation of architectural contents (e.g. in Rhineland-Palatinate) or the definition of the spatial necessities of an all-day school (e.g. in Brandenburg).

On a national level, BAK contributes architecture to the educational initiatives of the German Cultural Council, the Federal Agency for Civic Education (brochure about reconstruction in the series: “Subject sheets for lessons”), the Cultural Foundation of the German Länder (Children to Olymp!) and the United Nations (UN Decade Education for Sustainable Development). On an international level, BAK is actively working in the UIA working group “Architecture and Children”.