HELLERAU and the World Heritage Site, #2 - 2022

By Anette Hellmuth, Association for the Promotion of World Cultural Heritage Hellerau e.V.

Whether "Eden" in Berlin-Oranienburg or "Monte Verità", the mountain of truth, in the Swiss canton of Ticino - the names of the reform housing estates built around 1900 are often a sign of the longing of their builders. It was about light, air, freedom, truth, happiness, friendship, it was about those core concepts that can still make utopias enticing today. The reform settlements of the early 20th century were generally synonymous with the pursuit of a better life.

It was no different in Hellerau near Dresden. The originally planned name "Neuklotzsche" gave way even before the official christening to the name Hellerau, which in its promise of bright meadows was much more in keeping with the zeitgeisty, reform-oriented optimism about the future.while the Monte Verità in Switzerland was home to avant-garde dropouts, the Helleraureform project brought together bourgeois new thinkers such as the founder of Deutsche Werkstätten, Karl Schmidt, and Wolf Dohrn, both co-founders of the Deutscher Werkbund. They realised a unique life reform project here from 1908 to 1914, drawing on reform approaches from previous decades. Hellerau combined the garden city idea with progressive entrepreneurship, social utopias, modern architecture, reform education, art and cultural reform. The founders and idea generators of the site were concerned with creating a living environment in which technology and progress were not the only factors determining the pace of society.

The importance of Hellerauas the centre and focal point of the life reform movement is not only recognisable in retrospect, it can still be seen in almost all material evidence of the founding period. No other existing reform centre of the early 20th century has a similar number of unchanged buildings and settlement structures. The so-called OUV (Outstanding Universal Value) ennobles a natural or cultural site and authorises its inclusion on the World and Natural Heritage List. Hellerau has this value due to its uniqueness and state of preservation.

Based on this, in 2011 Helleraucitizens and institutions set out to apply for the World Heritage title with the life reform project Hellerau. This kind of civic engagement is very rare in Germany - but no less effective for that. The participants brought the experts from the Institute for Heritage Management in Cottbus on board, commissioned studies and organised colloquia. Over time, the partnership with the city of Dresden and the Free State of Saxony became ever closer. The local authority committed to the project with a unanimous city council resolution in April 2019, and the Free State of Saxony selected Hellerau as a candidate for the national German candidature list (tentative list). Hellerau, which has since been founded as a World Cultural Heritage Association, invested a great deal of energy and financial resources in the project. The contributors have prepared a scientifically substantiated application document in which the structure and architecture of Hellerauare used to explain its reform content. The "great period" of Hellerau, the years 1908 to 1914, are at the centre of the explanations. The Festspielhaus, today's European Centre for the Arts, the historical company ensemble of the Deutsche Werkstätten, the small houses and villas, the public spaces, the road and path network including the squares and paths and much more can be found in a central position. Particularly significant is the very theoretical implementation of the garden city idea according to Ebenezer Howard, which was first realised in Letchworth/England from 1903.

At the end of 2021, the Free State of Saxony submitted the Hellerauapplication to the Conference of Culture Ministers. In April 2022, an advisory board then visited Hellerau and examined the descriptions in the application document during a detailed tour of the town. The experts will finalise a corresponding report this year, which will then form the basis for the final decision at federal level. If it is positive, Hellerau will be added to the Tentative List. A year later, it could apply to UNESCO at international level. At the end of the process, the site will be inscribed on the World Heritage List.

So the aim of all the endeavours is to be included on a list? In short: yes, that doesn't sound spectacular. But the list in question is something special. It stands for the worldwide, joint endeavour to preserve the cultural memory of mankind for future generations.

Hellerau the site should be on this list because, as we still find it today, it symbolises humanity's longing for a better, holistic life based on solidarity. Hellerau has earned the World Heritage title because it is a unique example of how collective action and courageous avant-garde can make social change possible.