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Architecture of Cities: Mapping Beauty XXX

Rotterdam Photo Museum and more.

Three four-foot tall White Storks clothed militarily in Blue Evening Mess lingered against the barn facade: Their colored beaks nodded in my direction: Their farmer indifferent to my amazement postured alongside: The rest of the earths’ inhabitants by contrast appeared naked.

I with immeasurable angst tried to thrust my head out of the train window: My eyes paused: I wanted to take a few two-steps across the fields to examine the truth: If only there was any humanity within view to measure scale and weigh disbelief: I may have been hallucinating: The urgency to pull the emergency stop cord flustered my mind: It is apparent that all of my days recording life through railway windows have seemed dreamily like another’s life: This sighting was an unutterable fascination that will never be relived: The moment – -mine but not for another day. I pressed my eye lids open and shut and repeated: The equally frightening and beautiful beasts had vanished in plain sight> My life is fraught with fear that another moment will be missed: if only I knew how to capture everything my mind conjures and my eyes see.

The opening credits of Casablanca features an illustrated map of Africa. I imagined a similar type of map for my travels through Belgium and the Netherlands: Follow my days, follow my years: The dots could become a human with all circuits ablaze…a real life imaginary Georges Seurat Pointillist canvas: It is not quite the pleasure of visiting a true to form Seurat, yet it could be like reading in Braille: I don’t have to see where I have been: I can manner a touchstone.

Luxor Theater: Rotterdam.

I was flying from Amsterdam to Bruges courtesy the Eurostar train. My entire Amsterdam to Bruges trip reminded me of an M.C Escher tapestry- -Every sighting every dream appeared like optical illusions: So much beauty, so much history, so many discoveries defined my experiences: The sunlight and the darkness constantly dancing in frames- – architecture living abound combing parts in the streets and highways: Stories atop canvases manifested.

Amsterdam can be a haven for introspective solitude and then there is everything else it is: I stood in front of Anne Frank’s home: My camera lens caught the giant Westerkerk Church prominently near by. I was experiencing an abbreviated version of Hannah Arendt at Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem- -Lee Miller’s experience in Hitler’s bathtub: I was communing with the past- – with history and voices that are not mine- -but a collective of convenient experiences to elevate my engagements to feel like each day I was levitating. Maybe it was the Betty Blu puff or two: Maybe it was just living with Rembrandt and Van Gogh: I was photographing a momentary life.

Toyo Ito Pavillion in Bruges, Belgium.

Every city introduces me to a present, past and at times a future to dream about.

I still carry close to my heart the brilliance of Albrecht Dürer’s whale. My mind is often on my way to Zeeland when I arrive in Rotterdam: There in Rotterdam is the kingdom that is Rem Koolhaas: The  interesting if not brilliant architects and architecture there to address:

Slowly the train winds down and through The Hague: Later at maximum speed I land in Belgium’s Bruges: My final but lasting destination is Toyo Ito’s Pavillion: Against the backdrop of the Bruges City Hall I realized that 256 km or 150 miles flashes by like cheat notes in a debate:

An immense travel log is lodged somewhere in my brain: A place for my eyes to blaze and rest in the unfettered wilderness that is my career: Each day blind enthusiasm determined my bearings- -Never lost- – but here and there.

Rem Koolhaas De Rotterdam skyscraper.

Richard Schulman is a photographer and writer. His books include Portraits of the New Architecture and Oxymoron & Pleonasmus. He lives in New York City.

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