Fabriekshal 1931 - 1937

Curator: The image we are looking at, Fabriekshal, comes to us from the years 1931 to 1937. What’s fascinating is how this anonymous photographer captured a moment in Dutch industrial history using a then-modernist lens. Editor: Striking! The sharp angles and grayscale give this a stark beauty; it's almost unsettling how calm and silent the space seems, despite the scale of those industrial elements. Curator: Precisely! What resonates is its raw, almost brutal simplicity. We are looking into what seems to be an Indonesian tile factory and one can almost sense the machinery's stillness before it roars to life. I imagine a landscape where the labor involved in material production blends the everyday with the heroic. Editor: Yes! I'm really seeing the emphasis on the skeletal structure. All these support beams feel crucial—and how each one dictates the possible movements, not just of machinery, but of human labor within the confines of this 'braat tegal.' The physical process of imprinting is front and center, almost devotional. Curator: I'm caught by the human scale of this space. Those sparse touches—the bench against the wall, a ladder ascending upwards; the objects feel orphaned, suggesting not merely production, but a certain, isolated presence. It feels both impersonal and deeply human, paradoxically. Editor: It’s so striking, especially thinking about it through this modernist framing. This stark, mechanical beauty becomes a sort of manufactured landscape itself, less about representing any place, more a monument to processes. You are right though about the ladder and the bench, even with all the machinery there seems to be something missing that brings us back to a question of craft and even home life. Curator: True, and that tension holds the photograph in beautiful suspension. Editor: For me, what remains after pondering Fabriekshal is a renewed respect for the hidden artistry in making things, even tiles.