Dessau may be a mere speck on the map, but to this day the city of Bauhaus still occupies the most important place in the development of the New Building - otherwise known as the Neues Bauen - movement. Alongside the Modernist architecture, there is another World Cultural Heritage site which draws in visitors from all over the world to the region, namely the Garden Kingdom of Dessau Woerlitz (Gartenreich Dessau-Woerlitz). In the shape of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation (Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau) and the Dessau-Woerlitz Cultural Foundation (Kulturstiftung Dessau Woerlitz), two institutions have come together to publish the first comprehensive architectural guide on Dessau-Rosslau and Woerlitz, areas most closely linked to the UNESCO World Heritage sites domiciled there. The eighteenth-century Garden Kingdom of Dessau Woerlitz and the twentieth-century Bauhaus School of Design (Bauhaus Hochschule fur Gestaltung) have not only bequeathed the city and its surrounds inestimable architectural urban and rural properties and spaces, but also an associated intellectual heritage which has made a lasting impact on the world and, last but not least, accounts for the attraction the area holds for tourists. These and other notable historic and contemporary buildings alike are presented in this architectural guide which also raises issues about the nuanced handling of this architectural and cultural legacy and of future planning.

"Art and technology: a new unity" - It was with this slogan that the Bauhaus moved to Dessau in 1925. The seven years in Dessau were most productive for the designers and architects at the Bauhaus. This illustrated volume presents the Bauhaus buildings in Dessau in words and pictures and offers new perspectives on these icons of modern architecture. Walter Gropius, Hannes Meyer, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Richard Paulick, Georg Muche, Carl Fieger and Karl Friedrich Engemann: the architects at the Bauhaus in Dessau realized their designs in the industrial city between the Elbe and the Mulde rivers during the years between 1925 and 1932 and thereby created a unique ensemble of modern architecture which attracts visitors from all over the world to Dessau to this day. Since 1996 some of the Bauhaus buildings in Dessau have been regarded as key works of European Modernism and are included in the list of UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Sites. They express the revolutionary aim of the historical Bauhaus to bring about fundamental change in society through design and architecture.