[Construction Site]
The urbanization projects of nineteenth-century France called on photography to record not only the ornamental details of a building’s exterior but also the progression of its construction. Lafon mastered this type of industrial imagery, a pursuit for which he was awarded a medal at the 1874 exhibition of the Société française de photographie. This photograph succinctly captures the construction of a building that integrated modern techniques of iron and steel-frame construction with traditional materials like brick masonry. In addition to showing the progress of construction, the image offers a striking tableau of modern labor. Tradesmen in dark clothing perch atop the razor-thin beams and cut dramatic silhouettes against the sky, while unskilled laborers cloaked in loose white smocks fidget and sway almost irreverently along wooden scaffolding, indicating the seconds-long exposure of Lafon’s large wet-plate camera. Left of center, in a tailored jacket and short-brimmed hat, an onsite engineer appears to handle a rolled-up drafting sheet that, like Lafon’s photograph, would reveal the building’s path from initial scheme to final shape.
Artwork Details
- Title: [Construction Site]
- Artist: Louis Lafon (French, active 1870s–90s)
- Date: 1880s
- Medium: Albumen silver print from glass negative
- Dimensions: Image: 36.8 x 47.8 cm (14 1/2 x 18 13/16 in.)
- Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: Purchase, Alfred Stieglitz Society Gifts, 2008
- Object Number: 2008.144
- Curatorial Department: Photographs
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