Case study · Industrial heritage

Ars Mechanica,
photographing a century of mechanics.

For “Ars Mechanica, la force d’innover”, the exceptional book retracing the story of FN Herstal and Browning, some thirty photographs, including the cover. Over 400 pages where studio precision serves Liège’s industrial memory.

House: FN Herstal · Browning (Herstal Group)
Commission: Photographs for the book “Ars Mechanica, la force d’innover”
Contribution: Some thirty photographs, including the cover
Object: Exceptional book, over 400 pages, published by Fonds Mercator
Uses: Art publishing, heritage

The commission

How do you tell more than a century of mechanical innovation without freezing the pieces into catalogue imagery? That was the challenge of Ars Mechanica: a reference book where FN cars, motorcycles and exceptional pieces had to be shown for what they are, objects of heritage.

Published by Fonds Mercator, the Brussels art-book house that works with the world’s great museums, from the National Gallery to the Metropolitan Museum, the book demanded images able to hold a full page, to converse with the technical plates and the typography, and to carry its cover.

The method, on this precise case

No AI here: patient, documentary studio photography. Packshot precision in the service of century-old objects.

Cover of the book Ars Mechanica, la force d’innover, photograph by Thierry Lechanteur — The cover: a photograph that carries the book.

The pieces

Cars, motorcycles, collection mechanics: each piece is treated as a subject in its own right, with its exact proportions, its materials and its history.

The light

Studio light built to reveal the deep black of the bodywork, the brasses, the steels, without stray reflections: the object sharp, ready to live in the layout.

The book

The images take their place in the book’s documentary plates, full page or in dialogue with the technical drawings. One of them becomes the cover.

The final object

Over 400 pages, some thirty photographs, and a cover: the book itself becomes an object of heritage, photographed like the pieces it recounts.

The images

Plate from the book Ars Mechanica: the FN Car 1600 photographed in the studio, set in the layout with its technical data — The FN Car 1600 in the book’s layout: the photograph converses with the technical data.

Double page of Ars Mechanica: the 1913 four-cylinder FN motorcycle photographed in the studio — The 1913 FN four-cylinder motorcycle, across a double page.

What the house gains

A reference book: over 400 pages where photography gives the mechanics of FN Herstal and Browning the status of works of art.

And for the houses who open it, proof of a craft: the same rigour serves a heritage book, a packshot or a campaign.

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