Wolfsburg is considered a pioneer, as building culture has had its own place in the city's cultural life for 15 years, alongside the classic areas of literature, music, art and history.

The small institution was born out of a growing need: requests for exhibition and research projects, university excursions and publications made it clear that the city's architectural peculiarity as a rare new urban development of the 20th century with important individual buildings by Alvar Aalto, Hans Scharoun, Zaha Hadid and others is widely recognized and encourages discussion.

Since the beginning of 2006, the Forum Architektur has been organizationally located in the building department of the city of Wolfsburg and directly assigned to the city's building department. A working group on building culture links the work with the other departments: Structural Engineering, Urban Planning, Monument Preservation and Green. The work of the Design Advisory Council is also coordinated by the Architecture Forum. In this way, the building culture projects are not seen as an add-on, but are developed jointly from the tasks of the building administration. The 'Wolfsburg model' is regarded as a role model nationwide in this respect. In the Alvar Aalto House of Culture, the institution is centrally located with a shop window facing the town hall square.