Ruïnes aan de Coolsingel te Rotterdam c. 1940 - 1945

Curator: The photograph before us, entitled "Ruïnes aan de Coolsingel te Rotterdam," captures a cityscape in utter devastation, crafted between 1940 and 1945 by J. Nolte, rendered as a gelatin silver print. Editor: Immediately, the sheer scale of destruction strikes me. Look at those skeletal buildings against what seems like an ordinary, even well-maintained road. The contrast is unnerving. Curator: It’s a chilling depiction of wartime Rotterdam. The stark black and white emphasizes the scene's desolation, acting almost as a memento mori for a shattered urban existence. Editor: Consider the process—a gelatin silver print. Each print painstakingly produced, fixing this moment in time. It wasn't mass-produced imagery; someone carefully created this record of societal disruption. Curator: The emptiness of the street, the lack of human figures—it all adds to a sense of abandonment. We might see the ghosts of resilience, yet also how places become embedded with collective trauma. Editor: What stories do these building materials hold? How many hands built those structures now lying in pieces? And how were the gelatin and silver sourced, processed, and employed during wartime constraints? The materiality implies a lot. Curator: The cityscape genre transforms. What we usually expect—signs of life, vitality—is brutally inverted. Nolte offers instead, a reminder of civilization undone, echoing far beyond its moment. Editor: This image, rendered with specific materials under particular economic circumstances, represents destruction as the tangible consequence of ideological conflict. Understanding that provides insight beyond mere aesthetic judgment. Curator: Reflecting upon it, I consider the power images hold. This stark visual, captured through photography, has cemented this trauma for all who observe it—allowing viewers to contemplate it many years later. Editor: Ultimately, it forces reflection on our role as both consumers and inhabitants of built environments. A potent document linking materiality, memory, and mass devastation.