The Cultural Landscape as Cultural Heritage

The former residence city of Kassel is located in a mountainous area in the Fulda River valley, near Germany’s geographic centre. Kassel is well known on an international level especially because of its palace and parks, such as the Bergpark (mountainside park) Wilhelmshöhe and the Karlsaue, and because of the documenta, one of the most important exhibitions of contemporary art, which is held every five years.

The palace in the Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe, with its Hercules monument and extensive water features, is an important reference point. A long sight line and an axial path lead from Hercules (the city’s most famous landmark) at the top of the Karlsberg down to the palace and beyond, all the way to the Orangery at the Karlsaue. The park’s design was originally baroque but this was later combined with the much more natural style of the English landscape garden.

The rectangularly shaped Friedrichsplatz, with its large Auefenster (an open view of the Karlsaue park)) and the circular Königsplatz, serve as the link between the axis and the Orangery and the downtown area. The medieval centre of Kassel, with its half timbered houses, was largely destroyed in the Second World War and was not rebuilt along historic lines. Reconstruction was carried out according to the guidelines of a modern, car-friendly city of the nineteen-fifties, and this image has survived until today. Kassel thus has a broad range of urban and landscape design from different eras, as well as a creative drive committed to diverse forms of aesthetic and functional ideals.

Through the contemporary artwork shown at the documenta, the city regularly provides space for the fine arts. A new master plan for the downtown area calls for a strengthening of the city’s centre in a variety of ways. Urban planning approaches include, among other things, structural additions and measures to increase the attractiveness of public streets and plazas. In doing so, more attention will be given to the special aspects of the city‘s history before and after the war. At the same time, Kassel is applying for status UNESCO World Cultural Heritage for the Bergpark and is therefore improving important parts of the park. Our work at the Königsplatz and the Tulpenallee in the Bergpark are poetic reinterpretations of existing elements. It refers to these elements and emphasises them, while remaining modern; the interventions are subtle and within the context of the cultural heritage of Kassel‘s cultural landscape.