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Bureau Europa is going on a journey! For several years, Bureau Europa has been creating and organizing its own walks, focusing on architecture, culture, and history. We seek out hidden places with remarkable stories, the rough edges of our environments and landscapes—the spots you often pass by unnoticed. Right now, you might be a casual passerby; soon, you will become a deliberate explorer.

In a growing database of virtual excursions, city walks, guided tours, and unique mental journeys, Bureau Europa invites you to open yourself to a fresh perspective on your surroundings. The outdoors serves as a starting point to experience design, architecture, and culture—at your own pace and in your own way.

Bureau Europa's walks began during the COVID period with the excursion program Voyage Voyage Voyage. Following its success, the walks have continued. Each month, we also offer an organized walk: www.bureau-europa.nl/maandelijkse-wandelingen. Additionally, the walks are available in beautifully printed editions at Bureau Europa.

Click on the bold titles below and explore the walks for yourself!

 

 

Which river is most important to Maastricht? While it may seem like an obvious question, the answer might surprise you—it’s not the Meuse. In fact, Maastricht’s development was more closely tied to the Jeker River than to the Meuse. The city grew at the confluence of these two rivers.

Did you know that water has been crucial to the city, and while the Maastricht expanded, Wyck actually shrank? Did you know there’s an underground aqueduct and that fish can climb stairs? You can even enjoy a ‘Sea View’ here, and water was once used as a strategic tool to breach the city walls. Discover more on this walk exploring Maastricht’s waterways, a sequel to the ‘En Plein Publique’ walk by heritage conservators Remco Beckers and Joes Minis. This walk was created for Open Monument Day.

Walk #16. Over Gevels en Glazeniers. De glasverhalen van Maastricht

We often look through glass but seldom at it. While ubiquitous today, in the past, glass was rarely a building material. Historically, church windows conveyed our identity and moral codes. Today, the symbolic depth of glass reflects our health, privacy, and nature. A glass building can be present and indiscernible – its architecture materialises and disappears. This walk guides you through Maastricht’s remarkable glass façades and vibrant stained-glass artworks, revealing the countless, captivating glass narratives woven into our city’s fabric.

Walk #15. En Plein Public. Maastricht's Street, Bridges and Squares

The monuments define the streets! This city walk introduces you to the well-trodden paths, bridges, and squares that narrate Maastricht’s rich past and shape its cityscape. Follow your feet and discover the streets that guide you. Walking through Maastricht, you’ll discover the stories behind its bridges, courtyards, and plazas and how they continue to inspire contemporary architecture. You’ll encounter new inner-city housing, historical streets, cul-de-sacs, unused squares, and heritage with potential. But how do we restore, preserve, and renovate such treasures? And how do Maastricht’s citizens feel about this? To address these questions, curator Remco Beckers of Bureau Europa and conservator Joes Minis of Centre Céramique have devised this walk specifically for the 2023 Maastricht Day of Architecture.

Walk #13. The River. Discover the water in the city

The Meuse River (Dutch: de Maas, Mestreechs: de Maos) is the heart of the city of Maastricht, it gave the city its name and influences it in more ways than you know. Maastricht was founded where the Jeker meets the Maas. The Romans built a castrum and later a bridge at this ford, they named it Traiectum ad Mosa, “crossing place at the Maas”. For the longest time Maastricht was a city over the Maas rather than along or by the river. The Maas was just a waterway and high walls delimited the riverbanks, making it impossible for the local population to walk by the river or to even spot it.

The current access to the riverbanks is as recent as the late 1990s when architect Jo Coenen designed a masterplan for the whole riverbank, organising the infrastructure in such a way that people could have more direct interactions with the Maas for the first time in the city’s 2000-year-old history. The river and the canals around the city shaped much of the city’s infrastructure and led to the creation of surprising places in the urban landscape. This tour invites you to follow the water and let it guide you to unexpected places. Through local stories and anecdotes, discover how the Maastricht community lives with its river.

Walk #13. The River. Discover the water in the city

The Meuse River (Dutch: de Maas, Mestreechs: de Maos) is the heart of the city of Maastricht, it gave the city its name and influences it in more ways than you know. Maastricht was founded where the Jeker meets the Maas. The Romans built a castrum and later a bridge at this ford, they named it Traiectum ad Mosa, “crossing place at the Maas”. For the longest time Maastricht was a city over the Maas rather than along or by the river. The Maas was just a waterway and high walls delimited the riverbanks, making it impossible for the local population to walk by the river or to even spot it.

The current access to the riverbanks is as recent as the late 1990s when architect Jo Coenen designed a masterplan for the whole riverbank, organising the infrastructure in such a way that people could have more direct interactions with the Maas for the first time in the city’s 2000-year-old history. The river and the canals around the city shaped much of the city’s infrastructure and led to the creation of surprising places in the urban landscape. This tour invites you to follow the water and let it guide you to unexpected places. Through local stories and anecdotes, discover how the Maastricht community lives with its river.

Walk #12. In case of emergency!

Maastricht has a history of concealing, hiding and refuge, from medieval city walls to the later fortifications. These structures have defined the cityscape for centuries. Some have only been open to the public for the past decade.

Air-raid shelters, bunkers, lookouts and tunnels remain hidden from us. During the Second World War, a robust underground infrastructure of shelters was established, both for people and world-famous works of art. During the threats of the Cold War, the Civil Defence (Bescherming Bevolking, or BB) made preparations in the city. After all, you never know when an emergency might come knocking.

Walk #10. The Zinc Identity of Maastricht

For those who know where to look, Maastricht houses a wealth of zinc. Follow in the footsteps of the striking zinc oxide workers and encounter surprising zinc architecture, both new and old, and on and off the beaten track.

Here we border on the most important area of Europe’s zinc industry. Once upon a time, in the 19th and 20th centuries, the strip of Belgium that extends from Liege along the border to the town of Kelmis was entirely devoted to zinc mining and processing. Maastricht benefited from this industry and had its own infamous Zinc Oxide Company (Zinkwit Maatschappij) with inhuman working conditions. But zinc can also be found in unexpected places in Maastricht’s streets – unnoticed but distinctive nonetheless.

Walk #9. From landfill to flowery grassland

Human influence on the landscape is evident in areas where the ground has undergone heavy mineral extraction, such as the zinc oxide sites in Limmel and near Eijsden, but also in a more nuanced way in unexpected places. Have you ever considered the impact of the posts driven into a field to create a non-existent boundary? Or what happens to old landfill sites? Do you know what happens to the rainwater that fell on these grounds decades ago? Or why you should keep an eye out for butterflies during a nature trail? On this walk, artist Stefan Cools takes you on a route through and around Bunde and past special natural areas.