The Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Realm (German: Dessau-Wörlitzer Gartenreich) is a cultural landscape and World Heritage Site in Germany. It is located between the city of Dessau and the town of Wörlitz in Central Germany. It is one of the first and largest English-style parks in Germany and continental Europe. The park was created in the late 18th century during the rule of Duke Leopold III of Anhalt-Dessau. Today, the area covers 142 km² (55 square miles) within the Middle Elbe Biosphere Reserve in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. Because of its special landscape design and its reflection of the ideals of the Age of Enlightenment, the Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Realm was named a World Heritage Site in 2000.
Origin
The Gardens began in the 17th century when Leopold's great-grandfather, Prince John George II of Anhalt-Dessau, married Dutch princess Henriette Catharina, daughter of Prince Frederick Henry of Orange. This marriage brought engineers and architects from the Low Countries, led by architect Cornelis Ryckwaert, to design the town, palace, and a Baroque garden in the village of Nischwitz. The village was renamed Oranienbaum in 1673. The Dutch influence remained common in the Principality of Anhalt-Dessau for many years.
In 1758, Prince Leopold III became the Duke of Anhalt-Dessau. Five years later, he and his friend, architect Friedrich Wilhelm von Erdmannsdorff, traveled across Europe on a Grand Tour. During this trip, they studied ancient Italian architecture and English landscape gardens. They were also influenced by the ideas of The Enlightenment. Inspired by these experiences, they wanted to change the formal garden style of the Baroque era to a more natural landscape, similar to those they saw at Stourhead Gardens and Ermenonville.
As early as 1765, Leopold III began making changes to the countryside to create these new designs. The Wörlitz gardens became the first landscape garden in continental Europe. Over the next 40 years, Leopold adapted or created several other parks and palaces to match the Enlightenment style, including Oranienbaum Palace, Georgium Castle, Mosigkau Castle, and Großkühnau Castle.
Wörlitzer Park
The Wörlitzer Park is located next to the small town of Wörlitz, near a branch of the Elbe River. This location gives the park plenty of water and a variety of plants and animals. The park was designed between 1769 and 1773 as one of the first English-style gardens in Europe. Duke Leopold III wanted the park to also teach people about architecture, gardening, and farming, so parts of it were open to the public from the start. Most of the buildings were designed by Erdmannsdorff, while the gardens were created by Johann Friedrich Eyserbeck, a gardener who was inspired by famous English gardens like Claremont and Stowe. A dam built to protect the park from flooding also serves as a walking path with views of the park.
Wörlitz Palace, completed in 1773, was the home of Duke Leopold and his wife, Louise of Brandenburg-Schwedt. It was the first Neoclassical building in modern-day Germany. The palace and its inside, which included special furniture made by Abraham and David Roentgen and a collection of Wedgwood porcelain, were open to the public. Louise lived in a nearby house called the Graues Haus (Grey House). Near the palace’s garden is the Wörlitz Synagogue, built in 1790 as a round building inspired by the ancient Temple of Vesta in Italy. The synagogue, which showed Leopold’s respect for different religions, was saved from being destroyed during the 1938 "Kristallnacht" pogrom by a park worker, who later lost his job. In the west of the park, the Neo-Gothic St. Peter’s Church, with a 66-meter-tall steeple, was completed in 1809.
The design of the park was influenced by the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the artistic style of Johann Joachim Winckelmann. These ideas led to the creation of small decorative buildings called follies. Rousseau believed that farming was important for daily life and that nature could teach people. The most beautiful landscape in the area, Rousseau Island in Neumark’s Garden, was designed to look like the island where Rousseau was buried at Ermenonville Park in France.
An island in the artificial Wörlitz Lake has Europe’s only man-made volcano. In the 1760s, Duke Leopold III visited Europe and saw Mount Vesuvius in Italy, which was still smoking, and learned about the newly discovered city of Pompeii. Twenty-two years later, he brought the idea of a volcano to Germany. His architect built a large brick structure nearly five stories high and covered it with local rocks. At the top, a hollow cone was made with a chamber that had three fireplaces and a roof shaped like a crater. A lake was built around the volcano, and friends were invited to watch an eruption. Today, the volcano is restored and still used for eruptions with modern effects.
The smaller buildings in the Garden Realm, which stretches about 25 kilometers, greatly influenced architecture in Central Europe. The "Gothic House," started by Erdmannsdorff in 1774, was modeled after the villa at Strawberry Hill in England and was one of the first Neo-Gothic buildings in Europe. The park also includes copies of Roman temples, such as the Pantheon, built in 1795. In the early 1800s, the landscape was expanded with Neo-Gothic churches in nearby villages like Riesigk (1800) and Vockerode (1811).
The park’s land was divided into four parts after a railway and a highway were built in the 1930s. In 2000, UNESCO declared the park a World Heritage Site. However, ICOMOS noted that the overall landscape has suffered some damage over time.
Oranienbaum
The original Oranienbaum Palace was completed in 1683 as a summer home for Henriette Catharina. She moved there after her husband passed away in 1693. The palace’s interior includes leather-covered walls and a dining room with tiles from Delft, a city in the Netherlands. In 1780, Duke Leopold III had the palace and its surrounding park redesigned in a Chinese style, following the ideas of Sir William Chambers. This redesign included arch bridges, a tea house, and a pagoda. In 1811, an orangery was built. It is 175 meters (574 feet) long and was one of the largest in Europe. It continues to protect a large collection of citrus plants. Oranienbaum Palace, along with its park and planned layout, is one of the few remaining examples of a Dutch Baroque-style town design in Germany. Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, who is also Princess of Orange-Nassau, visited the restoration work on March 3, 2004.
Georgium Palace
In 1780, John George (1748–1811), the younger brother of Duke Leopold III, owned Georgium Castle in Erdmannsdorff. The castle is located in a forest near a river, north of Dessau. It has an English garden with several monuments. This garden is the second largest in the Garden Kingdom, after the Wörlitz gardens. Today, Georgium Castle displays the Anhalt art collection, which includes works by Albrecht Dürer, such as a famous print called Melencolia I, and paintings by Lucas Cranach the Elder.
Luisium Castle
Luisium Castle is located in the Waldersee district of Dessau and was given as a gift from Duke Leopold III to his wife, Louise. It was constructed between 1774 and 1778 in a simple and elegant Neoclassical style as a country home, designed by Erdmannsdorff. The building includes adjacent gardens, pastures, and a stud farm. The rooms on the ground floor and first story are decorated with intricate plasterwork and wall paintings. Near the castle is the Neogothic Snake House, which served as a vacation home and tea house. The orangery at the Snake House was inspired by the design of London's Kew Gardens. Duke Leopold III died at the castle on August 9, 1817, due to the effects of a riding accident.
Mosigkau Palace
Mosigkau Palace in the west of Dessau is one of the few Rococo palaces in Central Germany. It resembles Sanssouci in Potsdam, which was designed by Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff. The palace was built between 1752 and 1757 for Anna Wilhelmine of Anhalt-Dessau, the daughter of Prince Leopold I. The group of buildings includes an orangery and a collection of Flemish Baroque paintings. These paintings come from Duke John George II's marriage to the House of Orange-Nassau. The collection includes works by Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck.
Großkühnau Castle
Großkühnau Castle is located at the western end of the Garden Realm. It was constructed in 1780 for Albert of Anhalt-Dessau, who was the younger brother of Duke Leopold III. The castle was built near Kühnau Lake. The park surrounding the castle features several artificial islands, fruit tree orchards, and a vineyard. Today, the castle is the home of the Kulturstiftung Dessau-Wörlitz, an organization that manages the park. The Garden Realm also includes the Leiner Berg forester's lodge, which was built in 1830 and is now a restaurant near the Elbe Cycle Route. Additionally, the Garden Realm contains the Sieglitzer Berg forest park, which was designed in 1777.
Garden dreams
Many parks in the Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Realm are included in the Saxony-Anhalt Garden Dreams program.