Construction Site. Artist: Louis Lafon (French, active 1870s-90s). Dimensions: Image: 36.8 x 47.8 cm (14 1/2 x 18 13/16 in.). Date: 1880s.The urbanization projects of nineteenth-century France called on photography to record not only the ornamental details of a building's exterior but also the progression of its construction. Lafon mastered this type of industrial imagery, a pursuit for which he was awarded a medal at the 1874 exhibition of the Société française de photographie. This photograph succinctly captures the construction of a building that integrated modern techniques of iron and steel-frame construction with traditional materials like brick masonry. In addition to showing the progress of construction, the image offers a striking tableau of modern labor. Tradesmen in dark clothing perch atop the razor-thin beams and cut dramatic silhouettes against the sky, while unskilled laborers cloaked in loose white smocks fidget and sway almost irreverently along wooden scaffolding,