Golden Key Academy graduate Juan Castro Varón discusses his experience learning to become a London built environment tour guide

Why did you apply for the Golden Key Academy and what were you hoping to achieve in terms of personal and professional development?

I've always been very passionate about buildings and cities, and I have attended Open City tours for years. I find that London gets more interesting the more you look into it, so when I heard about the Golden Key Academy I thought this was the perfect excuse to do exactly that, to dig deeper and learn more about the London built environment. I also figured the GKA would be a good opportunity to improve my public presentation skills and confidence. Turns out, I was right!

In what ways has the academy transformed your confidence and ability to lead unique and informative tours of urban environments?

I think my confidence grew by embracing my own curiosity – I discovered that when I speak about topics that genuinely interest me, my excitement naturally engages the audience.

On the streets of London, where many centuries of stories co-inhabit, you can't tell every story at once – there are almost infinite stories to tell. So you might as well tell the story you find most interesting. One so interesting in fact, that you might end up telling it to a group of 20 strangers on the street!  

Part of the course is developing your own unique tour, exploring a neighbourhood or theme of your choice, to feature in the Open House Festival. What inspired the focus of your special Golden Key Academy tour?

For my tour I was actually set on the theme before I decided the location. My tour is titled "A city is not a museum: how London adapts and changes" and the goal was to find a part of London with an interesting history of adaptation and re-building. I started at Liverpool Street because I was fascinated by the "historicist" enlargement of the train station in the late 1980s. The manufacturing of this idealised Victorian past really spoke to me. Then researching the Broadgate area allowed me to connect that story to 21st century financial London where the forces of capital and real estate have become the main protagonists of our changing city.

The last piece was suggested by my mentor Paul (thanks again Paul!) who suggested spending more time in Spitalfields. This allowed me to transition to the topic of how these forces of capital clash with London’s historic fabric and the more domestic needs of the capital, and how local opposition to these forces shapes the London of today, both for better and for worse.

What parts of the course did you find most useful in preparing your tour?

At the very beginning of the course we had a very inspirational talk that convinced me that walking tours can be a lot more than just informational or entertainment, but can also be a form of self-expression, even an art medium.

I loved the research part of the course as well. Going to the library and reading books that haven't been checked out in 15 years is really fun. The internet doesn't even get you halfway there compared to the amount of high-quality information available in print.

Later in the course, I really enjoyed talking to my mentor Paul, who gave me a lot of clarity and focus. Paul is very skilled at editing and that saved me a lot of time and made the story much more compelling. His knowledge and the bibliography he recommended were also invaluable.

Tour guiding involves lots of highly transferable skills including public speaking, research, analytical judgement and customer service. Where else have your Golden Key Academy skills proved useful since. completing the course? 

Presenting a 2-hour tour by yourself is not easy, but thanks to the Golden Key Academy I've now done it a handful of times and it gets easier and easier every time. In fact, I find now that every other presentation format seems a lot less daunting, and even enjoyable (this is coming from someone who used to have paralysing stage fright).

Another skill I have developed is research. Things like how to find primary sources, how to tell facts from factoids, and how to be wary of conflicts of interest in the ways stories are told – particularly with internet sources. I have a lot of respect for historians and journalists now, it's not easy.

Lastly, not necessarily a skill but a benefit is that GKA connected me to a network of people whom – since I didn't study architecture or a related field in school – I wouldn't have met otherwise. I've made good friends and connections as a result. GKA cohorts bring together kind people who are all interested in similar things.

A key part of the course is learning together and socialising with a like-minded cohort of fellow course participants. What are your words of wisdom for all those signing up for the 2025 course?

Go on as many tours as possible. Be curious but also analytical. I took my partner on a few tours with me, and it was very useful to be able to debrief after a tour and discuss the parts that we enjoyed the most or the least. If, like me, you're a beginner, I found this was crucial for developing my "taste level" in this medium, by exposing myself to as many other tours as possible.

Also take every opportunity you have to connect with the other students. I mentioned this already but one of the best parts of the course is that it really selects interesting people who are also very excited and very knowledgeable about the built environment. My fellow GKA students were very diverse in their backgrounds and professions, turns out some had even been involved in the decision-making for planning or designing buildings I featured in my tour. So my advice is talk to people as much as possible and don't leave it for later or wait until the next scheduled session, time goes faster than you think!