Herbouw van het Kasteel van Wijchen 1908

This photograph of Wijchen Castle under reconstruction was taken in June 1908 by an anonymous photographer, probably working for Monumentenzorg. The bones of the building, the scaffolding, are laid bare, like an anatomical drawing. I imagine the photographer, whoever they were, setting up their equipment, carefully composing the shot, trying to capture the essence of this moment in time. There's a certain stillness, a quiet observation, even though there must have been so much activity. It's kind of like painting, isn’t it? A way of freezing something, holding it still so we can look at it, think about it, maybe even understand it a little better. The castle reminds me of the kind of structures people build to live in, that they then become structures we look at. We learn and grow from it, and then build another one that someone else might be able to look at in one hundred years' time. What could they learn from it? Each stroke and angle reveals a story, not just of the building, but of the people involved in its making.