Wanting Architectural Immersion But Can't Travel? Try Google Earth

We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us.
Winston Churchill, HOUSE OF COMMONS REBUILDING (Hansard, 28 October 1943)

While we can explore our surroundings for inspiring architecture, sometimes we wish for something more or different.
Traveling is a great way to immerse ourselves in new architecture, but it isn’t always accessible.
Google Earth allows us to explore global architecture from home.

To pick a starting point in Google Earth you can draw inspiration from newsletters and architectural maps; choose a favorite city; search the name of a favorite architect or take advantage of Google Earth’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” feature at the bottom of the search dropdown.
You can also take a playful approach using geography guessing games like GeoGuessr and City Guesser.

Google Earth has an official tours page. In the past, the page featured renowned architects such as Zaha Hadid, Frank Gehry, Frank Lloyd Wright, Oscar Niemeyer, and Santiago Calatrava². Currently, one official architecture-related tour is available on Google Earth: “Buildings Inspired by Nature“.
Google Earth allows users to travel through time using its Historical Imagery feature, which lets you see how cities and landscapes have evolved over the decades. This feature offers a unique perspective on architectural development and environmental changes.
Using the Street View feature, you can walk the streets and even enter some buildings.

You can enhance your virtual architectural exploration using virtual reality with Google Earth VR (available on the Meta Store or Steam), EarthQuest, or Fly—all based on Google Earth.