Exterieur van de Puerta del Sol in Toledo c. 1857 - 1880

Curator: I’m immediately drawn to the sheer mass of stone. The surface looks almost like rough-hewn fabric. Editor: Exactly! What we're observing is "Exterieur van de Puerta del Sol in Toledo," an albumen print by Juan Laurent, created sometime between 1857 and 1880. Currently it resides here at the Rijksmuseum. Curator: A city gate memorialized in such a tangible way. I’m thinking of the labour involved in extracting and shaping the stone for a structure that large, but also Laurent's role in memorializing that labour with this technology. Editor: This photograph places the Puerta del Sol in its urban context. Think about what a grand statement it made – a fortified entrance broadcasting power, controlling movement, and mediating Toledo’s connection to the wider world. It’s civic identity made material. Curator: There’s a definite relationship between the built environment and civic control. Seeing the human figure there at the base gives scale. It accentuates not just size, but the weightiness. I keep considering the material journey from quarry to here and how Laurent's photographic practice flattens all of it into this portable representation. Editor: And photography, even in its early days, served a political purpose. Images like this one documented and helped solidify national narratives about history, preservation, and progress. It presented an idealised and often romantic vision of Spain to both domestic and international audiences. Note the clear details around the stones...It gives off a "noble antiquity" vibe to this architectural construction Curator: So true. It begs us to ask, who controlled that narrative and whose stories were deemed worth preserving? Editor: Precisely. Laurent, operating commercially, navigates a landscape of power and representation, shaping how we see and understand the city today, through a lens – both literally and figuratively – of his own time and position. I now want to walk this ground! Curator: And I'm suddenly quite curious how this technology of printmaking democratizes or, perhaps, skews our understanding of value and monumentality in a place such as Toledo.