Five slender truncated cones stand on the square in front of the post office in Wohlen. The black geometric bodies, striving towards the vertical, show traces of their manufacture; they were cast from bronze using plaster models. They seem to grow out of the ground, their blackness contrasting with the plaza’s red paving tiles. The sculptures encourage people to navigate between them, not to linger. Heiner Richner likely realized the work several years after the completion of the building, which was designed by the Wohlen architectural firm Beriger, Hofmann + Partner AG. The minimalist structure reveals playful elements, such as its curtain wall of concrete sandwich panels, blue signage, and colour accents in the entrance area. The flat-topped cones seem to respond to the architecture, establishing a relationship with the building’s flat roof. 

The sculptor Heiner Richner (1944, Suhr) studied in Zurich and Berlin. In the 1970s, he was a member of Ateliergemeinschaft Ziegelrain, an artist group in Aarau, the hotspot of the Swiss art avant-garde at the time. Later, he lived and worked in seclusion for many years in a disused textile factory outside of Rohr, surrounded by nature. This place may have been conducive to his artistic development embracing simple, subtle, and reduced forms, as well as his search for inner images, which he strove to express in his works. Japanese culture also found influence in Richner’s work, following his participation at a sculpture symposium in Hagi in 1981. Serial drawings with geometric forms are central to his late work.

From the 1970s until around 2000, Heiner Richner realized numerous works for public spaces, leaving his mark on the sculptural landscape in Aargau. The Federal Art Commission and the PTT Building Construction Department commissioned the artwork for the post office in Wohlen directly from the artist.