The New Railway Bridge at Culemborg, Johann Heinrich Schönscheidt, 1868

photography, h 47.5cm × w 63.8cm More details

This photograph shows a brand-new bridge that had been opened for use just three weeks earlier. At that time it had the longest span in the world: 157 metres – all the more reason to ask a photographer to record this masterly feat of engineering. The carefully chosen vantage point and the small figures indicate the bridge’s scale. Thanks to the play of lines the structure does not come across as an ungainly massive block.