What was Hellerau? At first, a piece of untouched heathland. However, the moment Dresden furniture manufacturer Karl Schmidt set eyes on this sprawling area six or seven kilometres north of the city of Dresden, he saw in it the perfect site for his expanding "Dresden Handicrafts Workshops". The property was cheap and there was space for a large-scale project: founding a Garden City following the English example. Schmidt, a man with an extremely modern corporate philosophy, was very much in touch with contemporary “back to nature” Lebensreform ideas. His successful furniture range combined function and looks with the latest machine production techniques. Designs by international artists and a sensitive, professional, material-friendly approach to wood guaranteed the high quality of the pieces leaving the production line; the furniture was designed to be practical, simple to take apart and transport, and easy on the pocket. This alone was something of a revolution when it came to standard tastes for home furnishings – and the foundation of the Garden City was intended as a calculated contrast to the inhuman living and working conditions in the city, in terms of urban planning, social and cultural life, and economic issues. Living and working in nature, right by his production sites, with no land speculation involved: that was Schmidt’s philosophy. The settlement, with a mixture of social classes, was to be built complete with its own infrastructure. The main aim was to provide a home for workers that met their specific needs. From 1906 planning lay in the reliable hands of the architect Richard Riemerschmid, who had long been associated with the workshops as the designer of the machine-made furniture brand “Dresdner Hausgerät”. Karl Schmidt (fondly known as the “Wood Goethe”) was joined by another man who threw his whole soul into the project: the indefatigable Wolf Dohrn, a "fisher for new ideas" with a rounded education who was cosmopolitan, gifted and culturally ambitious. He had a doctorate in philosophy and economics, and acted as a right-hand man at Schmidt’s company. Dohrn was soon to be the third man behind the founding of the German Werkbund (craftsmen's association). Alongside Riemerschmid as a partner in the non-profit Garden City association “Gartenstadt-Gesellschaft Hellerau GmbH”, he played a vital role in shaping the project by adding a new dimension: the aim to create a complete alternative lifestyle. There were already ideas about schooling, social education and cultural activities, but they did not enter the arena until later.
by Cynthia Schwab
