Auberge 'Andraz' langs een weg in de Dolomieten 1916

Henri de Rothschild made this photograph of the Auberge 'Andraz' along a road in the Dolomites sometime between 1872 and 1947. It's a black and white photograph, the tones are muted and the contrasts are soft, like a memory fading at the edges. Look at the way the building is positioned against the landscape, it’s like it's growing out of the hillside. I love the texture of the mountains in the background, so different from the smoothness of the building's walls. Your eye moves from the details of the architecture into the wilder scenery surrounding it. There’s a tension in the image between the man-made structure and the natural environment, which is interesting when you consider photography as a means of documenting a specific place and time. The building feels solid and permanent, but the mountains hint at something ancient and enduring. It reminds me of those Bernd and Hilla Becher photographs of industrial buildings, where the subject becomes a kind of monument. It suggests an ongoing conversation about the intersection of culture and nature.