At the 44th session of the Unesco World Heritage Committee, the Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt was added to the World Heritage list on Saturday.

The Hessian Science Minister Angela Dorn and Darmstadt's Lord Mayor Jochen Partsch (both Die Grünen) were correspondingly pleased after the event, which was broadcast live on the Internet from Fuzhon in China.

Partsch spoke of "a historic day for this city".

Dorn said that with the recognition as World Heritage, a project had its happy conclusion, which was characterized by intensive work phases, but also waiting and hoping.

As the representative of the State of Hesse, she is also pleased that the State Office for Monument Preservation was able to make a significant contribution to the success of the nomination through content-related impulses and conceptual ideas.

Jochen Remmert

Airport editor and correspondent Rhein-Main-Süd.

  • Follow I follow

Anyone who had previously followed the online meeting of the World Heritage Committee around the globe knew, however, that the inclusion of the Art Nouveau ensemble of the artists' colony - at least this year - was by no means certain.

The international monument protection organization Icomos, which supports the Unesco World Heritage Committee as a consultant and expert and also monitors the fulfillment of the Unesco World Heritage Convention, initially planned to postpone the inclusion of the Mathildenhöhe.

Not because they did not recognize the Art Nouveau ensemble, which was largely shaped by the architect Joseph Maria Olbrich, as unique worldwide and as testimony to the life reform movement that promised a departure into the new at the time.

Unacceptable disruptive factor

Rather, Icomos criticized the fact that, according to the original plans, the new visitor center should have been built on the part of the height that the experts still count as part of the so-called core zone. A center at this point was viewed as an unacceptable disruptive factor. The city had reworked at the last moment and modified the plan for a smaller, somewhat more remote center in its application. In the text that the World Heritage Committee was supposed to decide on Saturday, it was still to be read that it was recommended to postpone the decision on the inclusion of Mathildenhöhe in the World Heritage community, although the original location of the visitor center was obviously the basis.

But the assurance of the city of Darmstadt that the revised plans would be implemented exactly in accordance with the Unesco specifications, and the committed pleading of the representatives from Brazil, Norway and other countries for an immediate inclusion of the works of the artists' colony, ultimately also convinced the experts from Icomos . And so the Mathildenhöhe is now the seventh Hessian world heritage.