What is "hellerau"

Hellerau is a quarter (Stadtteil) in the City of Dresden, Germany. It was the first garden city in Germany.

Based on the ideas of Ebenezer Howard, businessman Karl Schmidt-Hellerau founded Hellerau near Dresden in 1909. The idea was to create an organic, planned community. Several well-known architects participated in its construction, including Richard Riemerschmid, Heinrich Tessenow, Hermann Muthesius, Kurt Frick, Georg Metzendorf, Wilhelm Kreis and Bruno Paul.

Hellerau attracted cultural visionaries from all over Europe. Among them were Émile Jaques-Dalcroze, composer, and Gret Palucca and Mary Wigman, choreographers. Until the start of World War I, annual festivals attracted further members of the progressive elite of the time. In 1921, educator A. S. Neill founded his Summerhill School here. With the establishment of the National Socialist government in Germany in 1933, the progressive community at Hellerau ended.