An everyday scene on a rooftop terrace, a smoke break: three men are seated, relaxed and focused on a moment of enjoyment—doing something while doing nothing. We know nothing about their work, about what came before or after, or about what made this break necessary. Not even the photographer’s presence seems to disturb them; for it is undoubtedly a photographic image that serves as the basis for the large-format painting we see here. Highlighted in the picture are the gestures and accessories such as watches, loafers, a leather bag. More generally, the style and manner in which these men—identified by the title as architects—are together. Their social dynamics are in the foreground, an unfocused bonding and masculinity, a kind of self-referential eroticism.

While from the photographic viewpoint not only time but also the men’s leisurely pause is frozen, a fundamental shift occurs in the translation into painting. The title, format, technique, and display create a horizon of meaning that concerns both the temporal dimension and the interrelationship of objects and people. In the process, the observed scenario and the habitual dimension of the individuals are framed within a space of reflexivity: between background and foreground, the directions of the gaze and composition, authenticity and fiction. In this way, the painting stands in relation to the moment of the photograph’s capture, the time involved in its production, and the encounter of viewing it in this temporary context of presentation. The narrative spatial elements—the park visible beneath the rooftop terrace and the sprawling megalopolis in the background, which we can recognize as São Paulo—also suggest their own layered temporalities.

The work concerns the modernist idea of the architect not only as a designer of striking iconic symbols, but also as a social shaper. Something about this idea now seems outdated—in an age of investor-dominated interests, bureaucratic regulations, and the technological automation of design practice itself. Yet, a heroic self-image of the architect has always stood in tension with the social field that was to be shaped by architecture, and in particular with the social dimensions of labor and production on which the architect’s work remained dependent.

In this regard, the painting—with its structure of absence and presence—can be compared to the “Monument to the Builders of the City Center,” which the artist Gerhard Rommel installed between 1968 and 1972 on the edge of Alexanderplatz (today: Rathausstraße 5) and which could be understood as a final attempt at a representation that integrates different dimensions of the social. It is an abstract, triptych-like concrete structure to which six large bronze reliefs and eight smaller relief tondos are attached. The large relief panels depict men and women at work on the construction site, as well as during breaks and leisure, with potential residents/users also featured in the scene. At least one architect or construction manager is depicted, and a separate panel is dedicated to the planning process. The tondi feature stylized, friendly portraits. A multifaceted social panorama emerges, one that links the act of viewing to the function of public sculpture, as much as to the various dimensions of design, construction, and use. Here, too, is a kind of eroticism; it is the eroticism of life itself, which, aan integrative force, gives the “city center” its form and meaning—a city, of course, which no longer exists as such.

The very choice of the painting—from 2014, it is based on a photograph made by the artist in 2009—shifts the temporality of photography and painting toward that of the artistic decision to display this particular image in this specific location. The presentation connects elements within the image, for example, the glass panels separating the men from the surrounding city, to the storefront window. The viewer’s gaze into the window echoes the tension of the photographic moment, its interest and indifference. Construction lamps eminate outwards to the surrounding site and respond to the hours of the day. Production and presentation, subjectivity and social aspects intertwine here on many levels and culminate in an artistic gesture whose meaning ultimately becomes apparent only in the context of a design-intensive and “real-utopian” modernism, for which the Hansaviertel stands as a prime example.

Text by Helmut Draxler