Photo: architectural monuments, parks and recreation, castles, fortresses and palaces, other places, Wörlitz Park, Saxony-Anhalt

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Wörlitz Park: English Traditions on German Soil

Architectural Monuments • Parks and recreation • Castles, Fortresses and Palaces • Other places

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Poet Johann Goethe, who visited Wörlitz Park threetimes, admired the beauty of the palace and park complex. But the mostimportant impressing thing in Wörlitz is the number of objects that are one ofthe first in something. This also applies to the park: created in 1769-1773, itbecame one of the first English parks on the European continent. According to theplan of Prince Leopold III, the park was also meant to carry out an educationalfunction, "talking" to visitors about the architecture and featuresof garden construction. Therefore, some parts of the park were immediately openedto the public.

The Palace ofPrince Leopold III Friedrich Franz of Anhalt-Dessau located in Wörlitz Parkbecame Germany's first building in the classical style. Just like the park, thepalace with its outstanding library was also partly accessible for inspectionby the public, and the hostess had private apartments equipped in the detached GrayHouse. The owner was often at the Gothic House, built for the gardener, with whosedaughter the prince had an affair. This building in the Neo-Gothic styleattracts the attention with two different facades: the first, brick facade resemblesa typical English manor, and the second, looking to the channel, resembles anItalian church.

Leopold III was stronglyinterested in Italy, so copies of Roman temples, including the Pantheonappeared in Wörlitz Park. Europe's only artificial volcano that appeared after theDuke’s trip to Vesuvius is also there. The park has 17 bridges: wood, stone,iron, suspended, floating. Its iron bridge is the first in Europe. The parkalso has two temples- a synagogue (1790) in the form of a rotunda and the Neo-GothicChurch of St. Nicholas built a bit later. So Leopold wanted to show itsreligious tolerance. The whole Wörlitz serves one idea: to demonstrate thediversity of the beautiful in the world.

Wörlitz Park: English Traditions on German Soil

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