Gezicht op het stadhuis van Parijs 1870 - 1900

Curator: This is a photograph of the Hôtel de Ville in Paris, taken sometime between 1870 and 1900 by Étienne Neurdein. It’s a gelatin-silver print. Editor: My first impression is one of almost ghostly grandeur. The soft, sepia tones give it a sense of timelessness, yet there’s something undeniably imposing about the scale of the building. Curator: That feeling of grandeur is definitely intended, it’s the seat of local government, of course. I see echoes here of how civic power has historically presented itself, linking directly back to ideas about Roman virtue and urban planning, but also gesturing towards emerging capitalist hierarchies. Editor: Absolutely. And what about the specific architectural and decorative motifs—all the classical references? I keep thinking of the symbolism embedded within that facade: those figures represent concepts and values important to civic life in the French Republic. Are they guardians, representations of ideals, or something else entirely? Curator: Both, and neither. Looking at this through a contemporary lens, though, I have to acknowledge that who these symbols represent, who gets to be a guardian, an ideal citizen – that all carries a heavy historical and often exclusionary weight. Whose Paris is represented in this image? Editor: A valid point. And looking at the emptiness of the square, it’s hard not to imagine the sounds of that city suppressed beneath a century’s worth of history. But even in its stillness, I am so curious about the individuals who populate this cityscape and move within this constructed order. Curator: True, the scale here is human but dwarfed. Neurdein captured a city undergoing massive transformation – physically and politically – and one of the fascinating aspects of this picture is how that plays out in these spatial dynamics, hinting at evolving urban realities in this specific time. Editor: Thinking about this image in terms of what’s visible, I’m now curious about what’s hidden – the stories that can’t be gleaned just by studying iconography, but that ripple outward from it and through generations. Curator: I agree, this image reminds us to always interrogate not just the power that buildings and monuments represent, but also who that power serves, both then and now.