The attic
28 August 2025
28 August 2025
So the institute acquired the archive of Aldo and Hannie van Eyck. Physically everything is still on site where it was created: in the former house and workplace of the architects, now home to their heirs. Historically it’s not an insignificant place. The garden in the cover photo of this book, Team 10 meetings, is theirs, and the very place where I ate my sandwich for lunch yesterday. I went there because I thought we might need some pictures of the archive in situ, before it was transported to the depots in Rotterdam. When it’s gone it’s gone. Also, I was curious.
I would be photographing in the attic, while three of my colleagues prepared the inventory. And I would take pictures of them at work as well. I didn’t know what to expect from ‘the attic’. Dark probably. Cramped, cluttered. Difficult light distribution. I brought the tripod, but I didn’t know if I could use it. And even if I could, how much use is a tripod when photographing the dynamics of people at work? I wasn’t sure. I usually photograph things that do not move, or move very, very slowly, like buildings, landscapes and interiors. Occassionally a human being is present in the frame. But for this, I imagined something less static and distant. Not being a fly on the wall, but more or less present in the process, as far as that goes.
Unfortunately I didn’t get to see the house, which has a beautiful interior. J. photographed it earlier this year, before the entire art collection was sold (I believe that eventually the house itself will be sold as well). But he never made it to the attic, which is in a separate building on the same property, and nothing special, apart from the fact that it houses the archive. Minus the models.
(︎︎︎ Some familiar seventies items made me smile: a brown version of the green Poulsen lamp hung over our dining table when I was a child. The Boby trolley, that was my mum’s, and I had this globe-like paper lamp in my bedroom, only smaller. Isamu Noguchi vs IKEA, I presume.)
For various reasons I felt a responsibility to do this right. I would not be able to do it again, nor would anyone else. Not everything worked out well, but I’m pleased with what did. The only really silly thing I did is not photographing the garden.
A selection of these photographs is here to see.
I would be photographing in the attic, while three of my colleagues prepared the inventory. And I would take pictures of them at work as well. I didn’t know what to expect from ‘the attic’. Dark probably. Cramped, cluttered. Difficult light distribution. I brought the tripod, but I didn’t know if I could use it. And even if I could, how much use is a tripod when photographing the dynamics of people at work? I wasn’t sure. I usually photograph things that do not move, or move very, very slowly, like buildings, landscapes and interiors. Occassionally a human being is present in the frame. But for this, I imagined something less static and distant. Not being a fly on the wall, but more or less present in the process, as far as that goes.
Unfortunately I didn’t get to see the house, which has a beautiful interior. J. photographed it earlier this year, before the entire art collection was sold (I believe that eventually the house itself will be sold as well). But he never made it to the attic, which is in a separate building on the same property, and nothing special, apart from the fact that it houses the archive. Minus the models.
(︎︎︎ Some familiar seventies items made me smile: a brown version of the green Poulsen lamp hung over our dining table when I was a child. The Boby trolley, that was my mum’s, and I had this globe-like paper lamp in my bedroom, only smaller. Isamu Noguchi vs IKEA, I presume.)
For various reasons I felt a responsibility to do this right. I would not be able to do it again, nor would anyone else. Not everything worked out well, but I’m pleased with what did. The only really silly thing I did is not photographing the garden.
A selection of these photographs is here to see.