Ruïnes van het Steiger te Rotterdam c. 1940 - 1945

This small, black and white photograph shows the Ruïnes van het Steiger te Rotterdam. The absence of colour strips away the familiar, making it feel distant, a little like looking at the past. The photograph, glued to a grey page, captures a scene of destruction. The sky is pale, almost blending with the rubble. The texture is built from rough marks, suggesting the crumbling edges of buildings, now skeletal. There’s a kind of stark beauty in how the light catches the ruined structures, highlighting the severity of the damage. Look at the bridge! It has this delicate archway; a stark contrast to the chaos around it. It reminds me a little of the photographs of Eugène Atget; a kind of document of a city in decay. There is something compelling in the way that Nolte has made a kind of record of something so awful, turning destruction into something quietly beautiful. There’s no real answer, no full stop, just the continuous motion of history.