The project is situated in the Sphinxkwartier in Maastricht, positioned in-between
the inner city and the urban hinterlands. Underneath the fast pace of the city and factory, nature moves slowly, cascading down from the lock at the Maas river towards the fortification park, ever growing through the cracks.This project for an open air school on the old factory terrain, attempts to move away from the broad
concept of sustainability, towards a grounded and personal view on what it means to coexist with nature in the city.

This thesis reviews photographs of Dutch building sites between 1890 and 1920. A catalogue of photographs from building sites from the archive of Het Nieuwe Instituut is compiled, in order to see what role photography played for its commissioners. Commissions were made by architects and contractors to document their work. The photographs were used for documentation and publication, but also during the design process. The professional photographers who took them would not have a consistent working relationship with one commissioner. While the technology of photography would have led to new formal conventions, the photographs also have similarities to the traditional arts (i.e. painting, drawing). Some photographs, however, lack refinement in framing, composition and contrast. The most important reasons for this were photographers’ focus on documentation over aesthetics, their inexperience with the working conditions on the building site, and the developing technology of the camera. Iconographic research revealed how the photographs were used to represent change and innovation at the scale of the city, but also for materials and tools. Additionally, they display the hierarchical relationships between the labourers, architects and contractors.