Gezicht op het gebouw van de nationale bank in Antwerpen, België before 1893

Curator: So, what hits you first when you see this engraving? It's called "Gezicht op het gebouw van de nationale bank in Antwerpen, België," or "View of the National Bank Building in Antwerp, Belgium," dating from before 1893, by Römmler & Jonas. Editor: It feels incredibly solid and imposing. Almost aggressively stable. The perspective and the sheer detail in the stone suggest a kind of permanence, or at least, that's what it's trying to project. But there's also something fussy about it...all those little details and spires seem like it is overcompensating. Curator: I agree, that fussiness is a symptom of Neoclassicism wanting to impress but without the conviction, I think. It strives for grandeur with carefully placed classical elements and a symmetrical structure, but the print itself is almost sterile, without the drama of light and shadow we see in other cityscape engravings. Editor: Right, there is very little human activity; it's all about the building and the symbolic weight it carries. A bank building rendered like a fortress in a cityscape tells a potent story about power structures and where the nation places its priorities. It lacks warmth. It's a very cold statement. Curator: Absolutely. And given the timing – before 1893 – this building emerged during Belgium’s colonial exploitation of the Congo. One can't overlook how national banks acted as conduits for wealth accumulated through often brutal means, hiding that wealth, if you will, behind that solid architecture. It's so imposing that one easily overlooks the implications that those towers seem to proclaim. Editor: Yes! Seeing it now, I am almost assaulted by the lack of acknowledgement of the source of that economic stability it appears to want to portray. Still, as a physical thing, as a print, as a cityscape of this historical location, the piece does spark an awful, uncomfortable reverence. Curator: That dissonance is powerful. It’s a building proclaiming security built upon unsteady foundations, immortalized in print. Maybe there is something profoundly fitting after all in this very precise but oddly unsettling depiction. Editor: Agreed. A picture is indeed worth a thousand words, and the discomfort speaks volumes here, not about architecture alone, but also about our social realities then and today.