Ontwerp van de Sint Antonia Meisjesschool 1896 - 1917

This is a drawing of Sint Antonia Meisjesschool by Johannes Georg Jacobus van Arum. Look at all those lines! The thing about drawing like this is that you have to be so precise, so exacting. I imagine Van Arum hunched over the paper, carefully marking each brick, each window, each tiny detail of the school's façade. You can see the amount of work that went into creating the illusion of depth, the perspective carefully plotted to give the building a sense of presence on the page. I bet he drew the bricks one by one. I imagine Van Arum thinking through the building's structure as he drew, understanding how all the parts fit together to create a whole. It's almost like he's building the school again on paper, brick by brick, line by line. It's not just a representation of a building; it's a record of an intense, focused act of attention. And maybe, just maybe, that act of attention can inspire us to see the world around us with new eyes, to notice the beauty and complexity in even the most ordinary things.