Gedeelte van de Grote of St. Catharinakerk te Heusden 1904

This photograph of the Grote of St. Catharinakerk in Heusden was made by an anonymous photographer from Monumentenzorg, the Dutch heritage agency. It’s easy to overlook photography as a process, but every image results from countless decisions. The choice of perspective, the long exposure, and the sepia tone, all emphasize the building’s heavy materiality. We see brick upon brick, each one individually fired and laid. Consider the labor involved in constructing the church, and the social organization required to complete such an ambitious project. Its imposing mass embodies centuries of accumulated effort. The photograph itself, though now a seemingly simple artifact, speaks to the vast, hidden world of construction. Thinking about how things are made helps us appreciate the cultural and social meaning embedded in them, revealing the immense effort required to construct even a single building.