Transept van de Sint-Pieterskerk te Utrecht 1910

This photograph of the Transept van de Sint-Pieterskerk in Utrecht was captured around 1910, though the photographer remains unknown. I think the limited tonal range of the sepia print asks you to look more closely at the surface. The worn facade of the church is really about texture. It invites a haptic response, you can almost feel the roughness of the stone. You can see the little drips running down the stone in the center of the building, like a stain on a pair of jeans. These stains disrupt the geometry of the building, introducing an element of chance and entropy. You almost get the sense that the building is slowly dissolving before our eyes. The anonymous nature of this photograph also speaks to the way that images accumulate over time, becoming part of a collective memory. It reminds me of the work of Bernd and Hilla Becher, who documented industrial structures with a similar sense of detachment and precision, finding a strange beauty in the everyday.