ABSTRACT
Dutch designer Paul Schuitema, pioneer of New Typography, started making films in the 1930s. Elaborating on Joris Ivens's The Bridge, he made De Maasbruggen, which was shot, at the same location: the bridges across the river Maas in Rotterdam, artery of the city, its port, trade, and industry. De Maasbruggen can be seen as a condensed example of the city symphony, as an expression of the experience of modernity, in which the aesthetics of cinema converge with the rhythms of the modern city. In a 1985 study of De Maasbruggen, Arij de Boode and Pieter van Oudheusden wondered why Schuitema chose almost the same subject as Ivens. With the production of De Maasbruggen, Schuitema embarked on an expedition into modernity. De Maasbruggenis generally dated 1937, the year it was brought to the censor. As a city symphony, it appeared rather late.
