Ultra Vision

For Ultra Vision, Hans Wilschut photographed from the Dom Tower in Utrecht over the course of four seasons. The project consists of four monumental panoramas in which the city is not seen from a single moment or a single viewpoint, but as a carefully constructed whole of time, height, light and perspective.

The images were made from three different levels of the Dom Tower, at approximately 40, 70 and 95 metres above the city. Each panorama is composed of sixty to ninety individual photographs, allowing both the historic city centre and the distant horizon to appear with exceptional clarity.

With Ultra Vision, Wilschut connects historic Utrecht with the city in transition. The Dom Tower functions not only as a vantage point, but also as a symbolic measuring instrument for the city. From this height, the medieval centre, postwar districts, urban edges and surrounding landscape are brought together in a single image. The city appears as a living system in which past and future, built environment and open space, centre and periphery continuously respond to one another.

The project refers to the tradition of the cityscape, while giving it a contemporary form. Like the seventeenth century painter Pieter Saenredam, known for his precise but subtly adjusted perspectives, Wilschut brings different viewpoints together into one convincing image. The result is a view the human eye could never experience in quite this way. It is not documentary in the conventional sense, but it is not invented either. Rather, it is a carefully constructed vision of how a city reveals itself in layers.

Ultra Vision was shown in 2016 at Centraal Museum Utrecht and formed part of Stadsgezichten. Utrecht in transitie, a series of photographic commissions by Stichting Stedelijke Fotografie Utrecht on the growth and transformation of the city. Within that wider project, Wilschut’s Dom panorama occupies a distinctive position: it does not focus on a single construction site or district, but looks at the city as a whole. The panoramic form makes visible how Utrecht extends, densifies and relates to the world around it.

The making of video can be watched here.