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1 Introduction
1.1 Background to the study
For more than ten years, the city council of Dresden has been planning to create an
additional Elbe crossing near the Waldschlösschen site to the east of the inner city,
a project titled “Verkehrszug Waldschlösschenbrücke” [Waldschlösschen Bridge
thoroughfare]. These plans are not new; the intention of building an additional bridge
across the Elbe on this site has surfaced repeatedly in the city’s urban planning history
(see chap. 5, section 5.1). The project was still in the planning stage when the Dresden
Elbe Valley was inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage List, which the city had applied
for in January 2003.
The documents supplied as part of the World Heritage Site application also included
information on the planned “Verkehrszug Waldschlösschenbrücke”. On the basis of the
supplied documentation and a statement by the Landesamt für Denkmalpflege Sachsen
[Saxony State Office for Historic Preservation] provisionally supporting the plans for the
new thoroughfare, the envisioned Waldschlösschen Bridge was not deemed an obstacle
when the Dresden Elbe Valley was evaluated for acceptance onto the UNESCO World
Heritage List in 2004.
On 24 November 2005, the International Council for Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS),
advisory body to the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, received further information
regarding the bridge as part of the planning approval documentation. This also included
research into possible tunnel solutions (source: ICOMOS statement, 17 January 2006).
Based on the updated state of information, ICOMOS is now claiming that the
supporting documentation provided by the Dresden city council as part of its application
to the UNESCO World Heritage List was “insufficient” and incomplete. In the
statement from 17 January 2006, ICOMOS INTERNATIONAL concludes, that “by all
means there should now be a pause for thought to have the opportunity to inform the
World Heritage Committee [...].”
1.2 Purpose of the study
In order to establish evaluate whether or not and the extent to which the “Verkehrszug
Waldschlösschenbrücke” will interfere with the visual integrity of the protected Dresden
Elbe Valley, the UNESCO World Heritage Centre in Paris called for a visual impact study.
With the approval of the Dresden city council, the German UNESCO Commission
outsourced the study to the Institut für Städtebau und Landesplanung / RWTH Aachen
[Department of Urban Design and Regional Planning / RWTH Aachen University].
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