Energiecentrale Grand Mère, bij Montréal, Canada 1936

Wouter Cool’s black and white photograph, Energiecentrale Grand Mère, bij Montréal, Canada, captures a hydroelectric plant in a way that feels so solid, so there. I imagine Cool, setting up his camera, maybe thinking about Bernd and Hilla Becher, finding beauty in industrial structures. The building's facade is captured head on, all those tiny windows, set within the rigid brickwork. It’s as if he is saying, "Here it is: a monumental feat of engineering." But then you look at the water churning at its base, and suddenly it feels so fragile. The brutalist architecture seems precarious as the natural and manmade clash, as water rushes through these human constructions. Cool reminds us that everything is in flux. Maybe he was thinking about the tension between nature and industry, inviting us to consider the ways in which we shape, and are shaped by, the built environment.