Permanent exhibition HELLERAU - The idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk

The extensive exhibition on the founding, history and current development of Hellerau, which was developed by the Deutscher Werkbund Sachsen in 2006 and has since been continuously supplemented with additional exhibition panels, found its permanent home in the West side building on the Festspielhaus grounds at Hellerau.

From the idea conceived in autumn 1906 to found the first German garden city with the Deutsche Werkstätten, the housing estate and the Festspielhaus through to today's developments, visitors are presented with a broad panorama not only of Dresden's cultural history, but also of German cultural history in the 20th and early 21st centuries.

In brief complexes, the triad of work, life and art, when Hellerau became the cultural centre of Europe for a short time before the First World War, as well as the major changes in the use and ownership of the Festspielhaus site and the Deutsche Werkstätten can be traced.

The exhibition is complemented by a plaster model of the site, which was kindly loaned to visitors to HELLERAU by the Hamburg University of Fine Arts with the support of the Heinrich Tessenow Society.