Dessau, once capital of the Free State of Anhalt, lies at the junction of the Mulde with the Elbe. The Princes of Anhalt fostered literature and the arts, and the town developed into a considerable cultural center. The Bauhaus, the 20th century's most celebrated school of design, was based in Dessau from 1925 until its closure in 1932.
The Luisium in Dessau is an intimate English-style garden (by Johann Friedrich Eyserbeck, 1780), with a house in the style of an Italian villa (by Friedrich Wilhelm von Erdmannsdorff, 1774-77). It is lavishly decorated with arches, colonnades, temples, statues, monuments, grottoes, a Chinese bridge and an orangery.
23km/14mi southeast of Dessau is Gräfenhainichen, birthplace of the greatest Protestant hymn-writer Paul Gerhardt (1607-76), with the neo-classical Paul Gerhardt Chapel (1844) and the Paul Gerhardt House (1907-09; monument to Gerhardt by Friedrich Pfannenschmidt).
The Dessau Museum of Natural History and Prehistory (1746-50) is a reproduction of the Santo Spirito Hospital in Rome; its angular tower, 40 m/130ft high, was added in 1847. The collection covers geology, mineralogy, botany, paleontology and zoology, with prehistoric material from the districts of Dessau, Rosslau and Köthen.
Address: Natural History Museum, Askanische Strasse 30-32, D-06842 Dessau, Germany
Rosslau, 6km/4mi north of Dessau, on the Elbe, has a castle built in 1215. Other features of interest are the cemetery gateway (1822) and the Innungsbrauhaus (Guild Brewhouse; 1826), both by Gottfried Bandhauer.
The Georgenkirche (1712-17) is in Dutch Baroque style; one of the architects involved was Carlo Ignazio Pozzi. Its most notable features are the three-story onion-domed tower and the mansard roof on an elliptical plan.
Thiessen, 16km/10mi north of Dessau, boasts a water-powered copper-works of around 1600, one of the oldest and best-preserved of its kind (now a museum).
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Grafenhainichen, Germany
