Gezicht op de trouwzaal van het stadhuis van Antwerpen, België before 1898

This photograph by G. Choppinet captures the marriage hall in the City Hall of Antwerp, Belgium. Look closely at the construction of the hall, which required a vast amount of labor to erect, from the felling and hewing of timbers for the ceiling, to the carving of ornamentation. The murals, likely painted in situ, would have demanded further specialist skill. The inherent qualities of the materials—the weight of the wood and stone, the texture of the paint—speak to a culture invested in civic grandeur. The room’s very design would have involved architects, engineers, and a wide range of craftspeople. Its formal and spatial arrangement certainly reflects the social hierarchies of the time. Considering the immense human effort invested in such a place, we can appreciate how the making of architecture is deeply entwined with social context, blurring distinctions between art, craft, and the wider world of labor and production.