The Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Realm, (German: ''Dessau-Wörlitzer Gartenreich'') is a

cultural landscape Cultural landscape is a term used in the fields of geography, ecology, and heritage studies, to describe a symbiosis of human activity and environment. As defined by the World Heritage Committee, it is the "cultural properties hatrepresent the c ...

and

World Heritage Site World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...

in Germany, located between the city of

Dessau Dessau is a district of the independent city of Dessau-Roßlau in Saxony-Anhalt at the confluence of the rivers Mulde and Elbe, in the ''States of Germany, Bundesland'' (Federal State) of Saxony-Anhalt. Until 1 July 2007, it was an independent ...

and the town of Wörlitz in Central Germany. One of the first and largest English parks in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

and continental

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

, it was created in the late 18th century under the regency of Duke Leopold III of Anhalt-Dessau. Today, the

of Dessau-Wörlitz encompasses an area of within the Middle Elbe Biosphere Reserve in the German state of

Saxony-Anhalt Saxony-Anhalt ( ; ) is a States of Germany, state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia and Lower Saxony. It covers an area of and has a population of 2.17 million inhabitants, making it the List of German states ...

. Because of its exceptional landscape design and testimony to the ideals of the Age of Enlightenment, the Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Realm was designated as a world heritage site in 2000.

Origin

The Gardens had its origin in the 17th century, when the marriage of Leopold's great-grandfather Prince John George II of Anhalt-Dessau to the Dutch princess Henriette Catharina, daughter of Prince Frederick Henry of Orange (), in 1659 brought a team of engineers and architects from the

Low Countries The Low Countries (; ), historically also known as the Netherlands (), is a coastal lowland region in Northwestern Europe forming the lower Drainage basin, basin of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta and consisting today of the three modern "Bene ...

under the supervision of architect Cornelis Ryckwaert to lay out the town, the palace and a Baroque garden in the former settlement of ''Nischwitz'', which was renamed Oranienbaum in 1673. The Dutch influence remained prevalent in the Principality of

Anhalt-Dessau Anhalt-Dessau was a principality of the Holy Roman Empire and later a duchy of the German Confederation. Ruled by the House of Ascania, it was created in 1396 following the partition of the Principality of Anhalt-Zerbst, and finally merged into th ...

for many decades. In 1758, Prince Leopold III became the Duke of Anhalt-Dessau, and five years later he and his friend, the architect Friedrich Wilhelm von Erdmannsdorff, embarked on a Grand Tour across Europe. The tour (in particular the ancient architecture of Italy and the English landscape gardens), and the ideals of

The Enlightenment The Age of Enlightenment (also the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment) was a European intellectual and philosophical movement active from the late 17th to early 19th century. Chiefly valuing knowledge gained through rationalism and empirici ...

they encountered abroad heavily influenced their artistic tendencies. The two men aimed to move from the formal garden concept of the

Baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...

era to a more naturalistic landscape, as they had seen at Stourhead Gardens and Ermenonville. As early as 1765, Leopold III began to make architectural and landscape changes to the countryside in order to realize these ideals. The Wörlitz gardens served as the starting point of the programme, becoming the first landscape garden in continental Europe. Over the next 40 years, Leopold adapted or developed several other parks and palaces to fit the Enlightenment aesthetic, including the Oranienbaum Palace, Georgium Castle, Mosigkau Castle, and Großkühnau Castle.

Wörlitzer Park

The central ''Wörlitzer Park'' lies adjacent to the small town of Wörlitz at an

anabranch An anabranch is a section of a river or stream that diverts from the main channel or stem of the watercourse and rejoins the main stem downstream. Local anabranches can be the result of small islands in the watercourse. In larger anabranches, ...

of the

Elbe The Elbe ( ; ; or ''Elv''; Upper Sorbian, Upper and , ) is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Giant Mountains of the northern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia (western half of the Czech Republic), then Ge ...

river, making it rich in water and diversity. It was laid out between 1769 and 1773 as one of the first

English garden The English landscape garden, also called English landscape park or simply the English garden (, , , , ), is a style of "landscape" garden which emerged in England in the early 18th century, and spread across Europe, replacing the more formal ...

s on the continent. According to the ideals of Duke Leopold III the park would also serve as an educational institution in architecture, gardening and agriculture, therefore large parts were open to the public from the beginning. Most buildings were designed by Erdmannsdorff, while the gardens were laid out by Johann Friedrich Eyserbeck (1734-1818), a garden architect who was indebted to such English antecedents as Claremont, Stourhead and Stowe Landscape Garden. The gardens are protected from floods of the Elbe river in the north by a dam which is also a belt-walk offering numerous views along the park's sight lines. Wörlitz Palace finished in 1773, the residence of Duke Leopold and his wife Louise of

Brandenburg-Schwedt Brandenburg-Schwedt was a secundogeniture of the Hohenzollern margraves of Brandenburg, established by Prince Philip William who took his residence at Schwedt Castle in 1689. By appanage, they administered the manors of Schwedt and Vierraden on t ...

, was the first Neoclassical building in present-day Germany. The palace and its interior with valuable cabinets from the studio of

Abraham Abraham (originally Abram) is the common Hebrews, Hebrew Patriarchs (Bible), patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father who began the Covenant (biblical), covenanta ...

and David Roentgen as well as a large collection of

Wedgwood Wedgwood is an English China (material), fine china, porcelain and luxury accessories manufacturer that was founded on 1 May 1759 by the potter and entrepreneur Josiah Wedgwood and was first incorporated in 1895 as Josiah Wedgwood and Sons L ...

porcelain were publicly accessible. Louise had her private home in the adjacent ''Graues Haus'' (Grey House). At the eastern rim of the palace's garden stands the Wörlitz Synagogue built in 1790 as a rotunda modeled after the ancient "

Temple of Vesta The Temple of Vesta, or the aedes (Latin ''Glossary of ancient Roman religion#aedes, Aedes Vestae''; Italian language, Italian: ''Tempio di Vesta''), was an ancient edifice in Rome, Italy. It is located in the Roman Forum near the Regia and the H ...

Tivoli, Italy Tivoli ( ; ; ) is a town and in Lazio, Central Italy, north-east of Rome, at the falls of the Aniene river where it issues from the Sabine Hills. The city offers a wide view over the Roman Campagna. History Gaius Julius Solinus cites Cato ...

. The building expressing Leopold's religious tolerance was saved from demolition in the 1938 "

Kristallnacht ( ) or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation from the Hitler Youth and German civilia ...

" pogrom by the custodian of the park, who thereupon lost his employment. The

Neo-Gothic Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic or neo-Gothic) is an architectural movement that after a gradual build-up beginning in the second half of the 17th century became a widespread movement in the first half of the 19th century ...

St Peter's Church in the west with its tall steeple was finished in 1809. The philosophy of

Jean-Jacques Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Republic of Geneva, Genevan philosopher (''philosophes, philosophe''), writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment through ...

and the aesthetic of

Johann Joachim Winckelmann Johann Joachim Winckelmann ( ; ; 9 December 17178 June 1768) was a German art historian and archaeologist. He was a pioneering Hellenism (neoclassicism), Hellenist who first articulated the differences between Ancient Greek art, Greek, Helleni ...

underlie the design of the park and will lead to the creation of follies. Rousseau saw agriculture as the basis of everyday life and pointed out to educational functions of the natural landscape. Unsurprisingly, the most elegant landscape in the area is Rousseau Island in Neumark's Garden, scored to imitate the island at Ermenonville Park where the philosopher was buried. An island on the artificial Wörlitz Lake features Europe's only artificial volcano. When Leopold III went on a grand tour of Europe in the 1760s, he was captivated by a trip to Naples in which he saw a smouldering

Mount Vesuvius Mount Vesuvius ( ) is a Somma volcano, somma–stratovolcano located on the Gulf of Naples in Campania, Italy, about east of Naples and a short distance from the shore. It is one of several volcanoes forming the Campanian volcanic arc. Vesuv ...

and would have heard about the newly-discovered town of

Pompeii Pompeii ( ; ) was a city in what is now the municipality of Pompei, near Naples, in the Campania region of Italy. Along with Herculaneum, Stabiae, and Villa Boscoreale, many surrounding villas, the city was buried under of volcanic ash and p ...

. Twenty-two years later, the German royal set about bringing a piece of Naples to Germany; he had his architect build a brick inner building nearly five stories high and cover it with local boulders. At the top, a hollow cone was made and contained a high chamber, complete with three fireplaces and a roof that contained an "artificial crater" that could be filled with water. He then constructed a lake around the volcano and invited his friends to watch an eruption. Only contemporary accounts detail what the 18th-century artificial eruption would have been like, but the practice still takes place today, complete with modern effects, after the island was restored to its past glory. Minor structures of the Garden Realm, stretching for some 25 km, had far-reaching ramifications in architecture of Central Europe. The "Gothic House", started by Erdmannsdorff in 1774, modeled on the villa of

Horace Walpole Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford (; 24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797), better known as Horace Walpole, was an English Whig politician, writer, historian and antiquarian. He had Strawberry Hill House built in Twickenham, southwest London ...

at Strawberry Hill, was one of the first Neo Gothic structures on the continent. The park also features replicas of

Roman temple Ancient Roman temples were among the most important buildings in culture of ancient Rome, Roman culture, and some of the richest buildings in Architecture of ancient Rome, Roman architecture, though only a few survive in any sort of complete ...

s, including the Pantheon built in 1795. In the early years of the following century, the landscape was enriched with the Neo-Gothic churches in the neighbouring villages of Riesigk (1800) and Vockerode (1811). The grounds, which had been divided into four parts since the construction of a railway line and the Bundesautobahn 9 in the 1930s, were designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2000. ICOMOS, however, noted that "the overall structure of the landscape has undergone a good deal of deterioration".

Oranienbaum

The original Oranienbaum Palace was finished in 1683 as the summer residence of Henriette Catharina, where she retired after the death of her husband in 1693. The rich furnishing includes leather wallpapers and a dining room equipped with Delft tiles. However, in 1780 Duke Leopold III had the palace and the park rebuilt in a Chinese style, according to the theories of Sir William Chambers, with several

arch bridge An arch bridge is a bridge with abutments at each end shaped as a curved arch. Arch bridges work by transferring the weight of the bridge and its structural load, loads partially into a horizontal thrust restrained by the abutments at either si ...

s, a

tea house A teahouse or tearoom (also tea room) is an establishment which primarily serves tea and other light refreshments. A tea room may be a room set aside in a hotel, especially for serving afternoon tea, or may be an establishment that only ser ...

and a

pagoda A pagoda is a tiered tower with multiple eaves common to Thailand, Cambodia, Nepal, India, China, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Vietnam, and other parts of Asia. Most pagodas were built to have a religious function, most often Buddhist, but some ...

. In 1811, the

orangery An orangery or orangerie is a room or dedicated building, historically where orange and other fruit trees are protected during the winter, as a large form of greenhouse or conservatory. In the modern day an orangery could refer to either ...

was built, with in length one of the largest in Europe, which still serves to protect a wide collection of

citrus ''Citrus'' is a genus of flowering trees and shrubs in the family Rutaceae. Plants in the genus produce citrus fruits, including important crops such as oranges, mandarins, lemons, grapefruits, pomelos, and limes. ''Citrus'' is nativ ...

plants. Oranienbaum Palace together with the park and the geometrical settlement conception forms one of the few original Dutch Baroque town layouts in Germany. Queen

Beatrix of the Netherlands Beatrix (Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard, ; born 31 January 1938) is a member of the Dutch royal house who reigned as List of monarchs of the Netherlands, Queen of the Netherlands from 30 April 1980 until her abdication in 2013. Beatrix was born ...

, Princess of Orange-Nassau, inspected the restoration works on 3 March 2004.

Georgium Palace

In 1780, John George (1748-1811), a younger brother of Duke Leopold III, had the Georgium Castle by Erdmannsdorff. Located in a

riparian A riparian zone or riparian area is the interface between land and a river or stream. In some regions, the terms riparian woodland, riparian forest, riparian buffer zone, riparian corridor, and riparian strip are used to characterize a ripar ...

woodland north of Dessau, the palace features an English garden with several monuments. The garden is the second largest within the Garden Kingdom aside from the Wörlitz gardens. Today the Georgium hosts the

Anhalt Saxony-Anhalt ( ; ) is a state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia and Lower Saxony. It covers an area of and has a population of 2.17 million inhabitants, making it the 8th-largest state in Germany by area an ...

collection of art, including works by

Albrecht Dürer Albrecht Dürer ( , ;; 21 May 1471 – 6 April 1528),Müller, Peter O. (1993) ''Substantiv-Derivation in Den Schriften Albrecht Dürers'', Walter de Gruyter. . sometimes spelled in English as Durer or Duerer, was a German painter, Old master prin ...

- especially an

old master print An old master print (also spaced masterprint) is a work of art produced by a printing process within the Western tradition (mostly by Old Masters). The term remains current in the art trade, and there is no easy alternative in English to distingu ...

of his Melencolia I - and

Lucas Cranach the Elder Lucas Cranach the Elder ( ; – 16 October 1553) was a German Renaissance painter and printmaker in woodcut and engraving. He was court painter to the Electors of Saxony for most of his career, and is known for his portraits, both of German ...

Luisium Castle

Luisium Castle is located in the ''Waldersee'' district of

, and was a gift from Duke Leopold III to his wife Louise. It was built between 1774 and 1778 in a plain Neoclassical style as a country home according to plans by Erdmannsdorff with adjacent gardens, pastures and a

stud farm A stud farm or stud in animal husbandry is an establishment for selective breeding of livestock. The word "stud (animal), stud" comes from the Old English ''stod'' meaning "herd of horses, place where horses are kept for breeding". Historically, ...

. The rooms on the ground floor and first story are decorated with ornate stucco decorations and wall paintings. Nearby is the neogothic Snake House, which was used as a holiday home and tea-house. The orangery at the Snake House draws its design from London's

Kew Gardens Kew Gardens is a botanical garden, botanic garden in southwest London that houses the "largest and most diverse botany, botanical and mycology, mycological collections in the world". Founded in 1759, from the exotic garden at Kew Park, its li ...

. Leopold died at the castle on 9 August 1817 from the consequences of a riding accident.

Mosigkau Palace

Mosigkau Palace in the west of Dessau is one of the few

Rococo Rococo, less commonly Roccoco ( , ; or ), also known as Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and dramatic style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpte ...

palaces in Central Germany, resembling Sanssouci at

Potsdam Potsdam () is the capital and largest city of the Germany, German States of Germany, state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the Havel, River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of B ...

, which had been designed by Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff. It was built between 1752 and 1757 for Anna Wilhelmine of Anhalt-Dessau, the daughter of Prince Leopold I. The ensemble includes an

and an art collection of Flemish Baroque painting, stemming from Duke John George's II union with the

House of Orange-Nassau The House of Orange-Nassau (, ), also known as the House of Orange because of the prestige of the princely title of Orange, also referred to as the Fourth House of Orange in comparison with the other noble houses that held the Principality of Or ...

, that features works by

Peter Paul Rubens Sir Peter Paul Rubens ( ; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish painting, Flemish artist and diplomat. He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque painting, Flemish Baroque tradition. Rubens' highly charged comp ...

and

Anthony van Dyck Sir Anthony van Dyck (; ; 22 March 1599 – 9 December 1641) was a Flemish Baroque painting, Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England after success in the Spanish Netherlands and Italy. The seventh child of ...

Großkühnau Castle

Großkühnau Castle marks the western end of the Garden Realm. It was built in 1780 for Albert of Anhalt-Dessau, a younger brother of Duke Leopold III, at Kühnau Lake. The park includes several artificial islands, fruit tree orchards and a vineyard. Today the castle is the seat of the ''Kulturstiftung Dessau-Wörlitz'', the trust running the park. Furthermore, the Garden Realm encompasses the Leiner Berg forester's lodge, built in 1830, now a restaurant near the Elbe Cycle Route, and the Sieglitzer Berg forest park laid out in 1777.

Gallery

References

External links

Official site of the Dessau-Woerlitz Garden RealmOfficial site of the Wörlitz ParkOfficial Site of Kulturstiftung Dessau-Wörlitz
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dessau-Worlitz Garden Realm Castles in Saxony-Anhalt Gardens in Saxony-Anhalt Gardens in Germany Continental gardens in the English Landscape Garden style World Heritage Sites in Germany Landmarks in Germany Dessau Museums in Saxony-Anhalt Historic house museums in Germany 1769 establishments in the Holy Roman Empire Cultural landscapes of Germany