Architecture and tourism share an obvious yet, paradoxically, insufficiently examined relationship. Tourism emerging in the 18th century did not merely occupy pre-existing spaces; it generated urban forms (Férérol, 2012), specific architectural styles, and sometimes entire territories (Córdoba Azcárate, 2025). The advancement of large-scale leisure travel was accompanied by the construction of hotels (Bowie, 2018), villas, promenades (Karr, 1874; Debie, 1993), thermal resorts (Férérol, 2012; Carribon, 2014) and later seaside resorts (Toulier, 2005; Toulier, 2016), railway stations (Meeks, 1995), ports, and leisure facilities - even landscapes entirely reshaped to meet visitor expectations. Conversely, architecture is not merely the material backdrop for tourism practices; it plays a role in organizing them, shaping experiences and imaginaries, rendering certain places desirable, and contributing to the construction of their identities. From this perspective, the history of tourism is inseparable from the history of the production of built space (McNeill, 2008). Yet, this relationship has rarely translated into a genuine scholarly dialogue between tourism studies and architectural studies.
Tourism studies have gradually developed around issues concerning mobility, practices, visitor motivations, imaginaries, public policy, and the economic, social, and environmental impacts of tourism. While places naturally occupy a central role in this body of work, their architectural materiality is often relegated to the background, as if buildings were essentially just the scenery against which tourist experiences unfold. Conversely, while architectural history and theory - along with urban planning research - have extensively studied built forms, typologies, styles, architects, and design processes, they have less frequently examined tourism as a driving force behind architectural production. Hotels, resorts, and leisure facilities often appear as specialised objects studied in isolation, rather than being situated within the broader dynamics of tourist mobility, experience economies, or destination building.
This relative disconnect is all the more surprising given that few phenomena have contributed as significantly as tourism to the lasting transformation of built landscapes (Specht, 2014). Since the 19th century, seaside, spa, and mountain resorts have served as genuine architectural laboratories (Hess, 2025). They have pioneered new urban forms, invented novel programs, redefined the relationship between buildings and landscapes, and kept pace with evolving social leisure practices. In France, seaside and mountain resorts offer architects opportunities to experiment and innovate by creating entirely new typologies (Franco, 2021; Brusson, 1999). Grand hotels have played a role in both the internationalisation of architectural models and the dissemination of new standards of comfort (Bowie, 2018). Tourism infrastructure transforms coastlines, mountain regions, and historic centers, as well as metropolitan peripheries (Scerri et al., 2016). More recently, iconic cultural facilities and "starchitecture" (Renard-Delautre & Gravari-Barbas, 2015; Alaily-Mattar et al., 2020; Gravari-Barbas, 2020) have become key instruments in policies aimed at enhancing territorial and tourism appeal (Klingmann, 2007). On the other hand, the ‘use' of starchitecture has often been criticised for being at odds with the needs of its users or visitors, while its effects may extend well beyond the building itself (see Jiang, 2024 on the works of Christopher Alexander; Ponzini, 2014). Further critiques point to the role of starchitecture in exacerbating existing social inequalities and mobilising narratives of rebirth and authenticity to gloss over the shortcomings of processes of urban transformation and regeneration (Bonati et al., 2026).
Contemporary shifts make the dialogue between architecture and tourism more essential than ever. Debates surrounding overtourism, the touristification of historic centres (Gravari-Barbas, 2017), ecological transitions (Hall, 2025), and the rise of experience economies (Pine & Gilmore, 2013) demonstrate that architecture can no longer be viewed merely as a consequence of tourism development. Architectural projects play an integral role in managing visitor flows, shaping the image and staging of destinations (Hugron, 2008; Shaw, 2015), creating new centralities, driving strategies for territorial distinction (Gravari-Barbas et al., 2018; Scerri et al., 2019), and facilitating processes of heritage-making (Yabanci, 2022). At a time when destinations are simultaneously seeking to boost their appeal, preserve heritage assets, meet the expectations of a clientele increasingly attuned to spatial experiences, and mitigate the negative impacts of tourism, the interplay between architecture and tourism offers a unique vantage point for observing contemporary territorial transformations (Hugron, 2008).
This thematic collection from the Via Review journal, published across two consecutive issues, adopts this perspective. Its aim is neither to provide an exhaustive history of tourism architecture nor to catalogue the built forms resulting from tourism. Instead, it seeks to open a dialogue between two academic traditions that have long developed in parallel, demonstrating that the relationship between architecture and tourism constitutes a distinct field of research in its own right.
The contributions gathered in this first issue explore various ways in which architecture shapes tourist spaces, while the second volume will extend this inquiry through different case studies, subjects, and disciplinary approaches.
However, this ambition requires a slight shift in perspective. Tourism architecture is often defined by its function: hotels, holiday residences, leisure facilities, seaside resorts, ski resorts, or infrastructure designed to accommodate visitors. While this approach remains essential, it tends to confine analysis to a primarily typological reading. Buildings are thus viewed as specific architectural categories, identified by their program or usage. Yet, the contributions gathered in this issue demonstrate that the scholarly interest of tourism architecture lies less in the nature of the buildings themselves than in the relationships they establish between actors, representations, public policies, social practices, and territories. Architecture thus appears less as an autonomous object than as a form of mediation - that is, as a mechanism that enables certain experiences, structures specific interactions, and contributes to shaping particular representations of places.
This relational approach leads us, first, to view architecture as a key driver in the creation of tourism imaginaries (Graburn et al., 2019; Gravari-Barbas et al., 2020). Destinations are desired because they offer recognisable images, identifiable landscapes, or built forms capable of embodying the promise of travel. Hotels, villas, so-called traditional villages, waterfronts, purpose-built resorts, and restored historic districts do not merely respond to pre-existing tourism demand; they actively participate in generating that demand by giving material form to representations circulating in guidebooks, photographs, films, promotional campaigns, and - increasingly - social media. Tourism imaginaries do not always precede architectural forms; rather, they are constructed alongside them in a process of mutual reinforcement, where representations shape architectural projects while built forms stabilize, transform, or renew those very representations.
Architecture, therefore, does more than simply shape tourist imagery - it structures the conditions under which that imagery can be lived and recognised as an experience of the place. This process relies on material and spatial mechanisms, on sequences, framing, textures, morphological guidelines, and relationships within the landscape that help make places appear ‘authentic’.
The relational approach also leads us to move beyond a strictly functional reading of tourist architecture. Buildings and projects never respond solely to needs for accommodation, transportation, or leisure. They embody political, economic, and cultural choices that extend far beyond their primary function. Behind a grand hotel, a seaside resort, a development plan, or a heritage restoration project, specific conceptions of development emerge, as well as of the relationships between residents and visitors, and of the trade-offs between conservation and transformation, between international openness and the assertion of local identities. Architecture thus constitutes a privileged vantage point from which to observe the systems of actors that produce tourist destinations. States, local authorities (Biau, 2011), investors, architects, urban planners, developers, and heritage institutions each play a role in shaping the built forms. The resulting buildings and landscapes then appear as material expressions of compromises, tensions, and power dynamics, rather than simply as technical or technological achievements.
This perspective also allows for a reconsideration of the temporality of architectural projects. Tourism studies have traditionally prioritised realised destinations, physically constructed landscapes, and the activities they host. However, several contributions to this issue remind us that unrealised projects, abandoned competitions, master plans left in archives, and visionary concepts can exert a lasting influence on territorial trajectories. "Absent" architectures also have an impact; they bear witness to specific conceptions of tourism, reveal the ambitions of a given era, and sometimes continue to shape public policy long after they were abandoned. Analysing these projects invites us to broaden the very notion of tourism architecture, incorporating not only built structures but also spatial representations, development scenarios, aspirations, and the imaginative concepts that help shape public action.
Architectures created for tourism are themselves becoming heritage assets, prompting new policies regarding conservation, rehabilitation, or reinterpretation. For instance, in 2021, Nice was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as a "Winter Resort Town of the Riviera." This recognised the role of tourism as a driver of "diverse cultural influences exerted by winter visitors and the desire to make the most of the Riviera’s climatic conditions and landscape" - factors that "shaped the urban planning and eclectic architectural styles of these neighbourhoods."1
This relational approach leads to a reversal of a perspective that has long dominated heritage research. Tourism is generally viewed as a user - or even a consumer - of built environments, particularly pre-existing heritage sites, with the latter serving as the resources upon which destinations are built. Yet, the contributions gathered in this special issue demonstrate that tourism progressively generates its own forms of heritage. Grand hotels, seaside resorts, winter sports resorts, vacation infrastructure, and even modernist architectural works, long viewed merely as vehicles for economic activity, are themselves becoming subjects of preservation, interpretation, and promotion. Tourism architecture is no longer just a testament to the history of leisure; it is becoming an integral part of contemporary heritage, sometimes reinterpreted to reshape a destination's image or support new development strategies.
Understood in this way, tourism architecture no longer appears merely as a specialised field of architectural production, but rather as a meeting point for processes rooted as much in the social sciences as in architectural studies. It brings together material and symbolic dimensions, political agendas and sensory experiences, economic strategies and the construction of identities. It allows us to observe, simultaneously, the making of places, the creation of the imaginaries associated with them, and the practices that bring them to life. Moreover, it invites us to view the relationship between tourism and architecture not as a one-way street where one is simply the consequence of the other, but as a dynamic of constant co-construction. Tourism transforms the built forms just as those forms help transform the nature of travel, visitor expectations, and the trajectories of territories.
The issue ahead
It is precisely this dynamic that the contributions in this first volume reveal. Without attempting to cover every possible relationship between architecture and tourism, they address several key issues that shaped the original call for papers. That call invited contributors to examine, among other things, the role of architecture in shaping tourist destinations; the way built forms contribute to the creation of imaginaries; the interplay between architecture, heritage, and tourism development; and the impact of public policies, private stakeholders, and contemporary transformations on tourism landscapes. The eight articles collected here offer diverse responses to these questions while highlighting remarkable points of convergence.
The first set of contributions demonstrates that architecture plays an active role in shaping tourist imaginaries. Far from being mere material objects, buildings act as agents of representation that render places instantly identifiable, recognisable, and desirable. They help construct the very expectations visitors hold - and the experiences they seek - even before they set out on their journeys. Analyses focusing on Greek landscapes, the picturesque, and photographic imagery highlight the role of built forms in shaping the "tourist gaze." They also reveal that images do more than simply disseminate existing architecture; they, in turn, influence how buildings are designed, restored, or transformed. The boundaries between the representation and the production of space thus appear remarkably porous.
The second set of articles focuses more closely on the conditions under which this architecture is produced. Public policies, national development strategies, major planning projects, and private initiatives play a central role here. Case studies, such as Alpine hotels, Greek hotel chains, and development plans for the Cyclades, reveal moments when architecture becomes a key instrument for transforming territories into tourist destinations. These studies demonstrate that built forms never merely reflect aesthetic choices; they also embody concepts of development, economic models, visions of modernity, and societal agendas. Architecture thus emerges as a primary language through which tourism is conceived, planned, and governed.
Finally, several contributions examine the contemporary restructuring of tourist destinations, showing how architectural legacies of tourism are now being repurposed as assets for new development projects. The cases of Malo-les-Bains, and La Grande Motte each illustrate, in their own way, the processes of revitalisation, heritage designation, and repositioning affecting many destinations. In these contexts, architectural heritage is no longer preserved solely for its historical value; It is reinvested in strategies involving differentiation, place marketing, upscaling, or adaptation to visitors' evolving expectations. These articles also demonstrate that such processes are accompanied by significant tensions, whether stemming from land-use pressures, social transformations, the effects of tourism-driven change, or environmental challenges. Architecture thus becomes a prime vantage point for observing the contradictions inherent in contemporary destinations.
The diversity of the case studies, ranging from the Alps to the Cyclades, from French seaside resorts to American resorts, demonstrates the wide variety of situations in which architecture and tourism intertwine. The broad scope of the issues raised by the authors confirms that the relationship between architecture and tourism is not tied to a specific geographic context but involves a set of shared issues affecting vastly different territories today. Consequently, these studies encourage us to view tourism architecture not merely as a category of objects, but as a field of analysis that sheds light on contemporary transformations in society, mobility, and territory.
Aikaterini Karadima’s article opens the collection with a particularly stimulating theoretical contribution. Drawing on the Greek context, the author introduces the concept of pseudaisthesis to analyse how architecture contributes to the spatial production of tourist authenticity. Far from contrasting authenticity with artificiality, she shows that built environments are designed to meet the culturally constructed expectations of visitors. Through an analysis of Greek tourism policies, codified vernacular architecture, and the processes used to stage "Greekness," the article highlights the mechanisms by which architectural forms create coherent and convincing images of places.
This line of inquiry is extended by Philipp Krüpe, who situates the relationship between architecture and tourism within the long history of the "picturesque." By tracing a genealogy that leads from 18th-century pattern books to American resort towns and, ultimately, to contemporary social media, he shows that the picturesque is far more than an architectural style: it is a cultural technique for producing tourist landscapes. The article thus illuminates the contemporary shift in which digital representations sometimes become the benchmark against which tourists judge actual locations, revealing architecture's decisive role in shaping expectations and imaginaries.
Turning to the grand Alpine hotels designed by Henry Jacques Le Même, Arthur Grizard shifts the focus to the history of hotel architecture. His article demonstrates how transformations in mountain tourism, health-oriented practices, and medical knowledge drove the renewal of architectural forms between the late 19th century and the Second World War. Beyond being understood as only accommodation facilities, these grand hotels emerge as laboratories where new relationships between architecture, landscape, climate, and tourist practices were forged, revealing the progressive hybridisation of tourism, health, and architectural modernity.
Maria Tassopoulou’s article invites us to consider projects that were never built. Drawing on the master plan developed in the 1970s for the Greek islands of Mykonos, Delos, and Rhenia, she demonstrates that an abandoned project can nonetheless exert a lasting influence on territorial perceptions and planning policies. Through an analysis of this “archival ghost,” she highlights how the Greek state employs architecture and planning to craft a coherent tourism image of the Cyclades, while underscoring the paradoxes of an authenticity carefully orchestrated by the project itself.
Amalia Kotsaki’s text examines the Greek context from a different perspective, focusing on private hotel architecture. By tracing the history of the AMALIA chain, she demonstrates how a hotel network can become a genuine territorial system linking the country’s major cultural sites. The article analyses how each establishment seeks to express the characteristics of its specific location while contributing to the creation of a coherent, nationwide tourist itinerary. Here, architecture serves as a vehicle for experiencing topos, interweaving heritage, landscape, and identity.
The next two articles shift the focus to French seaside resorts, examining how tourist architecture is in itself becoming a form of heritage.
Through the case study of Malo-les-Bains, Sonia Laloyaux traces the evolution of a seaside resort from its 19th-century origins to its current transformation, driven by the push for upmarket tourism and environmental challenges. By analysing the history of seaside villas, waterfront redevelopment policies, and climate change adaptation strategies in tandem, she demonstrates the close interweaving of architectural heritage, tourism strategies, and coastal management today.
This line of inquiry is further developed by Trystan Vanpeperstraete in his study of La Grande Motte. Long associated with the mass tourism of the Trente Glorieuses (the post-war economic boom), this resort is currently undergoing a major redevelopment process driven by the recognition of its modernist architecture as heritage. The article analyses how local stakeholders leverage this recent heritage to market the area, revamp the destination's image, and move the tourism offering upmarket, while highlighting the tensions that persist between heritage enhancement, real estate pressures, and the effective protection of the built environment.
The volume concludes with a contribution by Mark Adams, who adopts an original research approach based on photographic practice. Drawing on walks taken in various European tourist resorts, the author offers a nuanced reading of ordinary landscapes, spaces in transition, and the fringes of contemporary tourism. Deliberately stepping away from the promotional imagery that dominates tourism communication, he demonstrates how photography can serve as a critical tool to reveal often-invisible dimensions of tourist architecture, its transformations and its temporalities. This contribution thus opens the discussion to questions of representation, perception, and experience, themes that will also lie at the heart of the second volume.
Conclusion
The contributions gathered in this first volume make no claim to exhaust the rich relationship between architecture and tourism. They do, however, demonstrate that the interplay between the two constitutes a particularly fertile field of research today, situated at the intersection of tourism studies, architectural studies, geography, urban planning, history, and heritage studies. By examining imaginaries and projects, public policies and experiences, and both built architecture and unbuilt archival designs, they invite us to move beyond a strictly functionalist view of tourist architecture and instead consider it as a key mechanism in the production of tourist destinations.
This first instalment focuses primarily on the processes through which architecture helps shape destinations, stage authenticity, organize tourist practices, and even become an object of heritage preservation itself. The second volume will extend this inquiry by exploring other geographical contexts, architectural typologies, and lines of questioning. In particular, it will allow for a deeper exploration of how tourist architecture is being transformed by environmental transitions, new forms of mobility, shifting tourist practices, and the restructuring of territories.
Put together, the two volumes aim not so much to offer a definitive synthesis as to help structure a research field that is still largely emerging. They advocate for closer dialogue between tourism research and architectural studies, convinced that the challenges currently facing tourist destinations can only be fully understood by jointly analysing mobility practices, architectural projects, the underlying imaginaries, and the spatial forms that give them substance.
