Justifying travel for cultural exchange or simply to engage with and observe the world is becoming increasingly difficult, as the detrimental effects of tourism—both social and ecological—have become evident. Technology, meanwhile, has collapsed geographical distance and altered the way we perceive things. In this exhibition, a selection of contemporary publications and critical investigations lay the groundwork through which to explore the relationship between travel and design today, while selected items from the CCA Collection offer a historiography of tourism. Rome has been selected as a relevant and significant case study—from the Grand Tour until now—to dissect different tactics connected to the economy and the dynamics of tourism, and strategies for travel and mapping. If tourism today has become problematic and banal, looking at its past—through a seventeenth-century guidebook, a cartographic reconstruction of antiquity, a portfolio of aerial photographs, records from the American Academy in Rome, signature sketches of Álvaro Siza, and modern tourism brochures—may reveal critical insight on various motivations and modes of travel.

Detour: Alternative Readings of Travel is the result of a series of conversations among Martien de Vletter (Associate Director, Collection), Louise Désy (Curator, Photographs), Viveca Pattison Robichaud (Curator, Books), and Irene Chin (Curatorial Coordinator).

Graphic design: Louise Paradis