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Les carnets d’architectes en voyage : traces sensibles, transferts critiques et fabrique du projet

Cahiers de la recherche architecturale, urbaine et paysagère, numéro 29

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Abstract

The topic of architects’ carnets de voyage (travel notebooks) has already received considerable scholarly attention, having been mapped out to some extent. The travel notebook is a record, an itinerary and a narrative all at once, situated within a relatively well-defined temporal and geographical framework. This distinguishes the travel notebook from the sketchbook, which is typically associated with the architect’s everyday practices of analysis and design. This issue of the Cahiers de la recherche architecturale, urbaine et paysagère examines these documents as complex objects, situated at the intersection of artistic practice, ethnographic investigation and technical experimentation.

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Guest Editors

Enrico Chapel, Caroline Maniaque et Frédéric Pousin

Argument

The topic of architects’ carnets de voyage (travel notebooks) has already received considerable scholarly attention, having been mapped out to some extent. Many authors have thus addressed this complex and unique dimension of architectural culture, through which architects have recorded the encounters, impressions, reflections and observations made while travelling. The travel notebook is a record, an itinerary and a narrative all at once, situated within a relatively well-defined temporal and geographical framework. This distinguishes the travel notebook from the sketchbook, which is typically associated with the architect’s everyday practices of analysis and design.

The notions of travel and movement nevertheless require clarification in each case, as does the material form of the notebook itself, which has been anything but stable through time: from portfolios, and bound collections of annotated watercolor drawings, to journals that include writing, sketches and plans, and so on. Further, research on these objects have often focused on the 18^th to the early 20^th centuries. The works of Danièle Pauly, Jean-Philippe Garric, Panayotis Tournikiotis, Yannis Tsiomis, Giuliano Gresleri and Antonio Brucculeri on architectural knowledge, design model dissemination and study trips, for example, emphasized surveys, sketches, sketchbooks and other drawing forms. The exhibition Voyager, Dessiner… Deux siècles de dessins d’architectes, presented at the Académie d’architecture in February 2025 should also be mentioned. Taken together, these studies—alongside those focusing on geographers—provide useful models for examining the travel notebooks of other spatial practitioners, including landscape architects and urban planners.

The post-World War II period has received little attention, despite profound changes occurring during this time. This includes the development and diversification of transportation networks, along with an increase in travel and international exchange spurred by scholarships, visiting professorships, professional travel, sabbaticals and commissioned projects. Architects and landscape architects carried notebooks on these journeys, just as they did their cameras. These notebooks therefore constitute important evidence into the ways in which all forms of travel (extended stays, site visits, lectures, professional encounters and partnerships) shaped architectural ideas.

This issue of the Cahiers de la recherche architecturale, urbaine et paysagère examines these documents as complex objects, situated at the intersection of artistic practice, ethnographic investigation and technical experimentation. Given the historical period being considered, explorations of evolving transportation systems and their influence on the form of notebooks themselves are also sought. Although technological innovation may have raised new questions about travel after 1945, when it comes to notation practices, both continuity and change deserve equal attention.

Here, we are interested in architects’ carnets de voyage as both sensory traces of lived experience and as frameworks for future design projects. How do these annotated pages—sometimes crinkled or stained due to travel circumstances—both interpret and reshape perceptions of the places encountered? In what ways do they actively mediate between observation and design? To whom are these pages addressed and within what time frame? The author themselves, for one, as they inscribe an encounter, a sense of wonder or a vision, jotting down thoughts and details. Accumulated experiences throughout a stay create ties with current or future projects, perhaps later becoming points of reference for the author or their collaborators. A travel notebook may also serve as a tool for dialogue with colleagues or other stakeholders. Ethnologists, for example, understand how drawing facilitates relationships, opening doors that photography tends to close—given concerns regarding image reproduction and sharing. Finally, the carnet de voyage can also be central to an exhibition or a publication, thereby reaching a broader audience within another timeframe.

Contributions may address these questions from three complementary perspectives.

Materiality and Encounter

First, specific attention will focus on the materiality of the notebooks themselves—these unassuming pages that have traveled in suitcases, enduring the elements and repeated handling. Contributions may examine how the choice of tools (pencil, quill, paintbrush, etc.), paper quality or accidental marks (stains, tears, etc.) are integral to the creative process. Others may explore how this process has evolved with the advent of digital writing and recording devices (such as tablets). In the age of social media and the proliferation of travel blogs—which introduce a public dimension—has the practice of keeping travel notebooks shifted? How are new ways of documenting our travel experiences transforming the very nature of travel notebooks, which were once deeply personal? Can they still even be called “travel notebooks”?

Research that investigates travel notebooks as spaces in which political and cultural debates take place are encouraged. Indeed, the second half of the 20^th century and the early 21^st century have been marked by major geopolitical shifts (decolonization, globalization, environmental crises, etc.), deeply affecting the movements of architects and landscape architects. How do their notebooks reflect sometimes challenging encounters with different social and cultural realities? Situated between fascination, scrutiny, documentation and instrumentalization, these deeply personal pages reveal complex perspectives that must be analyzed carefully.

Travel notebooks are filled with various experiences and aspects of a trip, as evidenced from the many different items they contain: newspaper clippings, notes on scraps of paper, postcards, polaroids, programs from shows or conferences, and so forth. As such, the carnet de voyage is fundamentally hybrid, creating a space where diverse materials intersect and recombine. It links various moments and situations, ranging from the journey itself (a time of literal and figurative transportation) to the very purpose of the trip (site visit, study, conference, etc.), including encounters and discoveries made along the way. The travel notebook can thus be seen as a “graphic worksite”: a place for collage, annotation and various collections.

To what extent is this undertaking comparable to that of artists, who also keep travel notebooks, sometimes even composing them as complete works of art? While the connections may not be obvious, it is nonetheless interesting to examine how creative techniques have been used in compiling these travel notebooks, relating them to historical movements in modern and contemporary art. It is also worth examining the very form of the notebook, a bound object designed to be flipped through and combined with other notebooks. For example, landscape architect Lawrence Halprin systematically kept notebooks from 1959 to 1972, forming a coherent body of work in which thoughts were recorded and developed over time in the form of drawings, annotations and texts. The early notebooks were mainly travel notebooks, while later ones resembled professional notebooks or mobile offices, as the landscape architect increasingly worked further away from his firm. Thus, the notebook’s hybrid nature and material form must be considered in order to better define its genre and examine both the intertextuality that shaped it, and that which will be revealed through its future uses. Literary studies and text genetics may therefore serve as methodological frameworks here.

Transformations and Resources

This issue also seeks to explore transformative processes through which gathered observations during travel have led to tangible projects. Contributions may compare idealized field notes with built projects, revealing adaptations or compromises. A genetic approach to architectural projects, as developed by Pierre-Marc de Biasi and Réjean Legault, allows to examine how certain patterns, structural details or spatial principles have been extracted from their original context and reused later on. In this regard, Louis Kahn’s Egypt notebooks and Le Corbusier’s from India provide compelling examples.

Moreover, carnets de voyage are known to be complex objects, characterized by their intercultural and transnational dimensions. We can therefore draw on cultural transfer analyses to examine these notebooks as a means of transmitting architectural models and forms from one city or culture to another. As intercontinental relations increase, this seems like a particularly relevant perspective to explore.

Similar to anthropological field notes—which are often referenced in publications or scholarly articles—we will examine how travel notebook elements are “reused.” How do travel journals result in essays, manifestoes or theoretical works? For example, Le Corbusier’s Le voyage d’Orient was written in the 1960s, but inspired by his travel notebooks from the 1910s. Landscape architect Jacques Simon’s Ibériques is a fictional narrative based on notes, photographs and drawings produced throughout a dozen trips to the Iberian Peninsula over some forty years. The central theme is roads, with the text remaining in the form of travel notes. The itinerary, however, has been reimagined, as have the images and drawings, which were compiled and laid out to create a narrative fiction. On a broader scale, Reyner Banham’s books provide a striking example of the reuse of various materials (slides, film, documentation, etc.) gathered over the course of his travels. The travel notebook is thus one material among others, to be analyzed in order to understand the making of a book.

Travel notebooks are commonly reused in lectures thereafter. In this case, the carnet de voyage is integrated into a presentation and combined with other visual materials, such as slides, videos or film. This raises questions surrounding their broader intertextuality, which can be explored through visual studies approaches.

Finally, carnets de voyage are an invaluable resource for researchers in architecture history. How are they used, analyzed and compared with other sources and documents, so as to interpret and present historical evidence? What role do they play in shaping scholarly representations of architecture?

Publishing and Circulation

Today, many exhibitions invite the public to browse travel notebooks using digital tablets. Do these new exhibition practices suggest a renewed appreciation for these objects? In what way?

Proposals may address current digitization issues, which concern both conservation and dissemination; that is, the growing visibility of these sensitive historical records. In this regard, recent projects by publishers like Electa or Lars Müller, offering facsimiles of travel notebooks, may be considered. Le Corbusier’s 1951 Album Punjab, recently edited by Maristella Casciato, is one example among many.

What do these types of publications provide, apart from scholarly analyses of the multilayered information contained within? Does making these archival sources—previously reserved for a small number of researchers—accessible to a wider audience help to renew academic research approaches? How do researchers, educators, students and architects engage with these important architectural records? For what purpose: educational, promotional, curatorial or other? This third theme may be of particular interest to educators, exhibition curators and other stakeholders involved in the preservation and promotion of architectural culture (librarians, heads of archives or documentation centers, publishers, etc.).

These three themes may be used in an intersecting and overlapping way. Submissions drawing on specific archival materials (original notebooks, preparatory documents, correspondences, etc.) while developing theoretical reflections are particularly welcome. Comparative approaches (between different traveling architects and/or landscape architects, or with other disciplines such as visual anthropology and geography) are also accepted, as are those exploring different historical periods, highlighting both changes and continuities in approaches to these notebooks.

At a time when geopolitical tensions are increasing—leading to border closures and restricted mobility—and environmental concerns are calling for a critical reassessment of travel practices, it seems essential to reconsider the cultural and intellectual dimensions of travel beyond mass tourism. These notebooks testify to the formative role of travel in shaping individuals, stimulating reflection and nurturing creative processes. This issue therefore seeks to examine the carnets de voyage of architects, landscape architects and urban planners in order to reveal their diverse forms, functions and modes of circulation. More broadly, it wishes to contribute to an ongoing collective reflection on practices, meanings and conditions of travel itself—a practice that, for spatial designers, continues to intertwine the personal and the professional.

Submission guidelines

Proposals for completes articles should be sent by e-mail before 10 November 2026 to the Craup’ Editorial Office craup.secretariat@gmail.com

Articles, whether in French or in English, must not exceed 40,000 characters, including spaces, without bibliography and notes.

Articles must be accompanied by:

biobibliographical record between 5 to 10 lines (name and first name of the author(s), professional status and/or titles, research themes, latest publications, e-mail address).
2 abstracts in French and English.
5 keywords in French and English.
The title must appear in both English and French

Proposals may be in French or English.

Evaluation

The texts are evaluated and peer-rewiewed.

Attached files

CRAUP29 APPEL A ARTICLES FR-EN.pdf

Contact(s)

Aude Clavel
courriel : craup [dot] secretariat [at] gmail [dot] com

Reference Urls

Les Cahiers de la recherche architecturale, urbaine et paysagère

License

This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons - Attribution 4.0 International - CC BY 4.0 .

To cite this announcement

Enrico Chapel, Caroline Maniaque, Frédéric Pousin, « Architects’ Travel Notebooks: Sensory Traces, Critical Transfers and Design Formation », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Wednesday, July 01, 2026, https://doi.org/10.58079/16hqg

Author(s)

Enrico Chapel