Reconstructing Travels in Architecture, Real and Virtual: Re-imagining a Post-Digital Grand Tour

This is the story of two, parallel journeys, centuries apart; the Grand Tour of early-modern Europe, and the author’s experiences on this School’s Alpine study tour this year.

This thesis retraces architectural history, physically traversing Europe as these Grand Tourists once did and digitally exploring the world as technology now allows.

This Alpine tour was a re-enactment of this architectural history. Travelling architects are modern Grand Tourists, armed with the technology to never be lost in strange cities, and to know intimately these buildings before ever visiting them.

Utilising photography and travel as its primary modes of architectural documentation and production, and a model-making practice as a device for speculation and self-analysis, this thesis investigates the effect of visual media on architectural design process and practice.