Gutachten Dresden_englisch_dritte f.indd - Fakultät für Architektur ...

2 UNESCO World Heritage Cultural Landscape:
Dresden Elbe Valley
2.1 Notes on some landmarks in the history of the “Dresden Elbe Valley”
The UNESCO World Heritage Site “Dresden Elbe Valley” is not the result of a single
brilliant idea or of an outstanding piece of planning, but of a centuries-long tradition of
respect and care for this unique natural landscape, and of the cultural valorisation of this
setting by means of park and garden design, urban planning and architecture. Many
different aspects of the Dresden Elbe Valley reflect this background – a kind of unwritten
convention, which aristocrats, politicians and ordinary citizens observed as a matter
of course. And it is the special combination of beauty and diversity of landscape with
cultural riches within a big-city context that constitutes the uniqueness of this cultural
landscape.
Some key elements of the inscribed World Heritage Site go back to August the Strong
(1694 - 1733). With the Venetian model in mind, he saw the Elbe as another “Grand
Canal“ and wanted the show sides of the prestige buildings to face the river. He also
constructed a gondola mooring place upstream, adjacent to the fortress. (City of Dresden
Planning Application documents, serial no. 6). It was at this time that the natural setting
of the Elbe Valley from Pillnitz Palace to Übigau Palace was given its cultural value and
form by Baroque architecture and landscaping. These two palaces represent the two
extremities, or “poles”, of the preserved cultural landscape known as “Dresden Elbe
Valley“. Dresden now became an Electoral residence city of European standing.
From the end of the 18th century, the river grew steadily in importance as a shipping
route. Towpaths were created on both banks for hauling vessels upstream. From 1850
onwards, the Elbe’s course was subjected to extensive changes (removal of islets, re-
alignment of tributaries, provision of flood overflow channels, etc.), necessitated by the
introduction of steamships.
In spite of advancing industrialisation and a massive rise in population at the end of the
19th century, it was decided that the River Elbe should not be canalised. In the early
1870s, having undertaken detailed technical studies of the water flow, and pointing
out the consequential costs that would result from walling the river banks, the regional
waterworks director of the time, Moritz Wilhelm Schmidt, succeeded in overruling a
whole phalanx of experts. (Laudel, Heidrun, page 2)
During the 19th century, once the old fortifications had been demolished, the city of
Dresden grew in ribbon fashion along both banks of the “Elbe artery“, without inflicting
11