Architecture of Everyday Life. Representations of labour in Brigitte Reimann’s Ankunft im Alltag (Arrival in Everyday Life, 1961). The author Brigitte Reimann can be described as a master builder of GDR literature. Her young adult novel Ankunft im Alltag (Arrival in Everyday Life, 1961) already established the industrial location of Hoyerswerda as a central setting, which both signifies a political programme and has developed its impact as an important literary topos. In Reimann’s subsequent works, in Die Geschwister (1963) and especially in her unfinished text Franziska Linkerhand (1974), the “large construction site GDR” also proves to be a paradigmatic location where questions of social ‘progress’ and socialist perspectives are negotiated. Based on this site inspection, the article focuses on labour and its diverse representations, which are exemplified by Reimann’s Ankunft im Alltag. The main focus is on the young protagonists and their ‘maturity tests’ intertwined with work, which take centre stage here. It is also important to look at the reception of Reimann’s work in a comparison of the literary systems of East and West. The aim is to show how the program that work meant in GDR literature can be traced here. It also seems fruitful to include Reimann’s literary activity and self-image using the example of her self-statements in diaries. In conclusion, the question of the extent to which traces of this literary GDR labour legacy can be traced into contemporary literature after 1989/90 is explored.