Toren met een bordes 1890 - 1946

Curator: This delicate pencil drawing is "Tower with a Balcony" by Cornelis Vreedenburgh, dating from between 1890 and 1946. It’s currently held in the Rijksmuseum collection. Editor: It feels like a half-remembered dream, doesn't it? The lines are so light, like a whisper of a building rather than a solid thing. I almost expect it to fade away completely. Curator: I find myself drawn to the sheer economy of means. The use of pencil on paper makes me think about accessibility and the process of recording architectural form. The cityscape itself, it becomes about labor, surveying, and even urban planning. Editor: Yes, labor, of course. But the tower itself… the arched windows, the slightly haphazard rooftop addition. I find it evocative more than efficient. It suggests a history of slow accretion, the way cities actually grow, unplanned. And those little figures at the base. What are they doing? Curator: It’s interesting that you focus on the anecdotal. For me, they represent an anonymous workforce, adding human scale, reinforcing ideas related to construction and social stratification in these built spaces. Editor: Maybe, but their sketched presence, so ambiguous… It invites a story, a speculation. Maybe they are gargoyles. And I imagine the draughtsman also wanted the viewer to participate in completing it, in essence offering them a space in the narrative and a say in the making of this work. It looks like one big draft! Curator: A provisional record becomes, ironically, its value. In its openness, there are traces of its moment of creation and production which invites interaction. Editor: A dance of absence and presence, material and immaterial, then. The ghostly tower lingers in the mind long after you walk away, both solid and ephemeral.