Architects' Travels

Architects' travels have been the subjects of earlier posts. Many of the collections in the Southeastern Architectural Archive include not only photographs of individual and firm projects, but also images of architects' tourist destinations.

Studio photographers such as the Alinari Brothers (Italy), Bonfils (Greece/Near East), Francis Frith (Egypt/Great Britain) and Sebah and Joaillier (Turkey) capitalized on travelers' desires to return home with visual mementoes. Often such images were produced as collodion wet plate or albumen prints on paper. They were inexpensive and portable, and could be purchased invididually or in sets. The latter could include wet collodion positives produced as lantern slides for public presentations.

The Toledano, Wogan and Bernard Office Records housed in the Southeastern Architectural Archive include studio photographs by Alinari, F. Frith & Co., the French photographer "N.D.", Ernesto Richter, Edizioni Brogi, and Anderson's Photos. Here, an unidentified photographer has captured a picturesque scene of nineteenth-century Troyes with its shoemaker's shop on the right.

Image above: Unknown photographer. Troyes, France. Undated print from collodion wet plate negative. Box 54. Toledano, Wogan and Bernard Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.