The photograph serves as a motif for Oxford Inciter.
In the foreground is Port Meadow, 374 acres of open land which lies between the River Thames and North Oxford. A canal boat moors on the Thames. Behind are trees and, invisible beyond them, a railway line laid down in 1846 and Oxford Canal, opened in 1790.
In the background are the tower of Magdalen College, the Radcliffe Camera, the University Church, Exeter College Chapel and Lincoln College Library.
In between, and looming over all of it, is a pile driver, two cranes, and a vulgar new red building bringing us rudely into the 21st Century.