On July 24, 2021, in its 45th session, the UNESCO committee declared the site of the former Mathildenhöhe artists' colony in Darmstadt, Germany the 48th World Heritage Site in the country. The organization thus fulfilled the proposal of the German Conference of Ministers of Education in 2014.
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The artist colony was founded in 1899 by the then ruling Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig von Hessen-Darmstadt (1868-1937), who wanted to see art flourish in his small empire and also hoped for an economic upswing.
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Ernst Ludwig's plans attracted many Art Nouveau artists, including the Austrian architect Joseph Maria Olbrich, whom the Grand Duke had met during one of his many stays in Vienna, where the exhibition building of the Vienna Secession was built according to Olbrich's plans in 1896.
Olbrich became the central figure of the new colony, Mathildenhöhe, which was built on the highest elevation in the inner-city area of Darmstadt. Named after Ernst's great aunt Mathilde, a Bavarian princess, the site already had a grand ducal garden in the English landscape style, a Russian Orthodox chapel (built for the last Russian Tsarina Alexandra, née Princess Alix of Hessen-Darmstadt) and a reservoir for Darmstadt's water supply.
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Olbrich was also the architect of most of the buildings on the site: the Ernest Ludwig House and residential houses, which, fully decorated and furnished, could be viewed at the first exhibition in 1901.
The most famous building by Olbrich in Darmstadt, however, is the exhibition building with the wedding tower built in 1908, which is the landmark of the Mathildenhöhe artists' colony. During the fourth exhibition in 1914, the First World War broke out and four years later Ernst Ludwig had to abdicate, which also brought his “Project Mathildenhöhe” to a standstill. In 1965 a new artist colony was established in the neighboring Rosenhöhe Park in Darmstadt.
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The Mathildenhöhe artists' colony can be visited today and temporary exhibitions are held in the museum housed in the Ernst Ludwig House. All information can be found on the website.
Darmstadt's Mathildenhöhe now joins the list of numerous world heritage sites in Germany, 45 of which belong to the cultural world heritage (including the Würzburg Residence, the Roman monuments in Trier and Wartburg Castle) and three to the natural world heritage (including the Wadden Sea).
