Rathskeller Neubau, Halle (Saale), Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, First Floor Plan

Peter Joseph Weber · c. 1887

Medium

Graphite, ink, watercolor, and tempera on paper

Original size

61 × 84 cm (24 × 33 1/16 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Realism

This first-floor plan of Halle's proposed Rathskeller Neubau is a rare example of late nineteenth-century German architectural draftsmanship elevated to something approaching fine art — its ruled lines and colour washes carrying the careful authority of a civic commission taken seriously. Peter Joseph Weber worked in the tradition of German architectural draughtsmanship at a moment when presentation drawings were expected to demonstrate not just structural intent but cultural ambition. By combining graphite linework with ink, watercolor, and tempera, he produced a document that functions simultaneously as technical record and aesthetic object — the coloured washes distinguishing spaces and materials with a clarity that pure line could not achieve alone. Architectural drawings of this type were often submitted as part of competitive building proposals, where visual persuasiveness carried real weight alongside engineering accuracy, making the quality of draughtsmanship directly consequential. The hand-painted oil reproduction translates Weber's layered mixed-media technique into the warmth and depth of oil on canvas, preserving the precision of the original plan while lending the work the physical presence it has long deserved outside an archive drawer.