Industrial Valves

“To do justice to modern technology’s rigid linear structure, to the lofty gridwork of cranes and bridges, to the dynamism of machines operating at one thousand horsepower—only photography is capable of that.” —Albert Renger-Patzsch, 1927 Valve handles soar like forest trees into the sky in this visual hymn to the beauty found in industry. For Albert Renger-Patzsch, this was a common sight. He lived and worked as a photographer in the Ruhr River valley, the coal-mining district that powered all of Germany’s heavy industries. Renger-Patzsch photographed factories and machines as aesthetic objects, and he believed the camera’s rapid speed and mechanical accuracy was the best way to capture their visual power.