When Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hesse and the Rhine initiated the artist colony on the Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt in 1899, the regent, who turned to the fine arts, promised himself - in addition to economic impulses - above all a great gain in prestige for the royal seat. Darmstadt's Lord Mayor Jochen Partsch (The Greens) is likely to have similar expectations today with regard to the possible recognition of the area, which is already internationally known as the center of Art Nouveau, as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The decision is likely to be made on Saturday, at the weekend the Hessian Science Minister Angela Dorn (also Die Grünen) and Partsch want to comment. Whatever the decision, the Darmstadt citizens will definitely win a newly renovated Mathildenhöhe,because at the moment everything is being renovated and built in every nook and cranny.

"We have to build a city"

Jochen Remmert

Airport editor and correspondent Rhein-Main-Süd.

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For the seven artists between the ages of 20 and early 30, whom the Grand Duke invited to develop on the Mathildenhöhe, it was definitely a lucky circumstance that did not encourage modesty: “We have to build a city, a whole one City.

Everything else is nothing ”, the Viennese architect Joseph Maria Olbrich is quoted as saying.

He is considered the driving force of the artist colony and with the construction of the exhibition house of the Association of Visual Artists known as the Vienna Secession, he designed a building that made him a kind of shooting star in architecture and is now considered a major work of Art Nouveau.

In addition to Olbrich, the Grand Duke called the painter and graphic artist Peter Behrens from Munich, the painter and graphic artist Hans Christiansen, the sculptor and reform pedagogue Rudolf Bosselt, who both worked in Paris, and the two young Munich artists Paul Bürck and Patriz Huber to the Mathildenhöhe. The sculptor Ludwig Habich was the only artist based in Darmstadt to join the first occupation of the colony. The seven artists were not only paid a salary for three years, four of them were also able to purchase land cheaply on the area around the plateau, on which until then there was essentially only a water reservoir for the city and the Russian church they then had artist houses built according to their ideas. At the end are the studio house and eight villas,including a house for the exhibition manager Wilhelm Deiters, which was built in a very short time. It was not only about the architecture of the houses, but also about the interior fittings including glasses, cutlery and other items of daily use. Everything should meet the same aesthetic standards.

"A Document of German Art"

As early as May 1901, the system was presented at the first international building exhibition.

It was entitled "A Document of German Art".

The central structure of the ensemble is the colony's studio house, designed according to Olbrich's designs.

Above the portal it can be read: “The artist will show his world that never was, nor will ever be.” The Mathildenhöhe was a testimony to the life reform movement of that time and gained international recognition, according to an award from the Federal Institute for Building , Urban and spatial research.

According to Olbrich's plans, the wedding tower and the adjacent exhibition building, which stands on the vaults of the reservoir, were also built in 1908.