Since the late 1950s, German artists Bernd and Hilla Becher's primary focus has been documenting the industrial structures that dot the landscape of northern and central Europe and the United States. Characterized by a deliberately unglamorous and detached aesthetic, the Bechers explore the seemingly objective nature of the camera as a recorder of truth. By working with a strict set of rules (a fixed, frontal viewpoint, overcast sky, and black-and-white film), the Bechers create photographs that avoid emotion, narrative, or subjectivity.

Wasserturme is part of a larger ongoing series in which the Bechers sought out similar architectural forms over a 25-year period. By juxtaposing like images in a grid format, a dialogue between repetition and variation is produced.