A Brief History of Scaffolding

This series of ten photographs depicts scaffolding feet captured in different cities around the world, including Tallinn, Brussels and New York. Scaffolding is an inherent part of living cities, but we rarely pay any real attention to it. The photographs show that the basic structure of the scaffold is identical throughout the world – yet more proof of a unified world. Scaffolding are like the footsoldiers of real estate booms, used on every construction site where new buildings are erected, each time combined to form new unique structures.

Kuimet draws an abstract parallel between scaffolding and the Crystal Palace. Both are constructions based on a regular frame. They both also appear transparent, lightweight and transient. After the completion of the Crystal Palace, the German architecture critic Richard Lucae wrote:

“As in a Crystal there is no longer any true interior or exterior. (…) If we imagine that air can be poured like a liquid, then it has, here, achieved a solid form, after the removal of the mould into which it was poured. We find ourselves within a cut-out segment of atmosphere.¹https://msu.edu/course/eng/886/photo-exterior.htm