Why Dresden Lost Its UNESCO World Heritage Status

What you fail to mention, though, is the fact, that UNESCO knew about the bridge when they approved the heritage status of the valley.

The loss of an abstract status or the actual impovement of the lives of the residents ? File the loss under "1 million reasons why the U.N is a worthless organisation and the whole West would be better off leaving it".

Dresden should be incentivised to painstakingly rebuild itself from its ruins. It may be a bit of a con, but who can deny the tragedy of this devastatingly beautiful city? UNESCO should know better!

If they built a neoclassical bridge they would have kept the unesco status

interesting things about general architecture, but edited badly and vo recorded badly

UNESCO's democatic legitimacy: 0.0

Being born and raised in Dresden, I think that the bridge took nothing from the Elbe valley, except for the UNESCO title. I have always been very excited about the bridge and I am still. For pedestrians it opens new opportunities to explore the area and in general I think the bridge is good to look at. When it was finished, I remember how amazed I was about the bridge fitting so well into the surrounding landscape, especially lining up perfectly with the hills in the background (as seen in your video as well). Looking at the river banks which were, in my understanding, the main point of the world heritage area, the bridge is actually not very invasive given its almost free floating design. Lastly in terms of traffic, even though new roads/bridges don't reduce traffic but rather increase it, I'm sure that the new bridge helped easing traffic in the central area of the city, especially since the very old bridges in the center had to be renewed.
So again, I think the bridge didn't take anything from the area. Does it provide something? A little. After all, without the world heritage title there wouldn't have been so much fuzz about the whole thing. But the title also sparked discussion, which made quite a few changes to the design and construction of the bridge. So after all I'm seeing a slight win for the city :)

Oh, I frogot to mention one point that's important to me personally. I do see this bridge as a piece of art and certainly as an expression of culture as well. While protecting existing sites of culture is important, we are not done developing, this is not the end. So adding new pieces of culture to the existing ones is something we should persue. There is nothing worse than getting stuck in conservation, especially for the Dresden mentality, which tends to be looking too much back into the past.

But the rebuilt Old Town of Warsaw is on the Unesco Heritage list, so how come Dresden is not?

A city is a living and breathing structure and you can't just take part of it and ban any changes or additions to it because of "historical value". If Dresden needed a bridge, it's good that it got one.

Dresden will be always a heritage city to me, bridge or no bridge. To stop the much needed development of a city for marketing/ Unesco purposes is stupid. That does the historical city have to do with a modern bridge?! Stupid.

I think they should have just built a nicer bridge in a historical style.
The bridge looks soulless and quite meh from my point of view.

Dresden doesn't need UNESCO world Heritage status. UNESCO world Heritage status needs it.

Good to see germans didnt lose theire attitude after World Wars...

if you ask me, the british bombers didnt knock down nearly enough of the ugly pompous neoclassicist buildings.
They are nothing but shameful monuments to the hubris of our ancestors. The entire city is fucking ugly & the streets are too wide & shitty to cross. Most of the people talking up its supposed beauty have suspect politics, to say the least.
The only saving grace of this hellhole is that the trams are regular.

A quaint river ruined by 24/7 auto noise. All tourists should AVOID.

You don't need UNESCO to preserve your heritage.

The person is trying to prove that UNESCO title is more important than comfort of the city residents....

They could of made a more better looking bridge at the least and not some modernist looking trash. And even if they didn't make the bridge, the place would probably lose any heritage title with all the immigrants coming in and ruining everything.

I think there's a good argument for making the old town a heritage site. Idk if they have to be at least x years old or something, but a great city rebuilt from the ashes after being totally destroyed, and as a symbol of reunification, seems like quite a heritage. Maybe in a hundred years it'll be old enough to be acknowledged as such.

Imagine first losing the World Heritage Status to a bridge and then losing the saxony cultural treasure to the Berlin Mob. The biggest diamonds heist in german history.

Kind of funny to think about the fact that Dresden somehow got removed from the list for building a tiny bridge while the list continues to include Essen Zollverein, which is literally nothing more than industrial wasteland and one of the ugliest places you can possibly imagine. :D

Is 100 years from now, enough time for the bridge to be considered "late XXth century bridge arquitecture " and the whole thing be added to UNESCO world heritage title. LoL, its ridiculous.

If you go back in time the people who built these UNESCO world heritage sites would ask us to build and improve on what they built. I’m 100% with preserving these heritages, but UNESCO must understand there’re people living there that they need to improve their standard of living. Maybe working together to preserve and improve on what’s exciting. Human nature is always to build and rebuild. After all, hundreds of years from now this bridge will be protected as a heritage site.

Its not an unattractive bridge, in fact it is somewhat elegant. You could say its a suitable modern addition to ongoing story of the valley.

Dresden was destroyed in WWII? How, and why?

Maybe Dresden should have waited to apply for World Heritage Listing after the bridge was built, on the single criterion they had remaining after the bridge knocked out the others.

Dresden was destroyed by allies in in ww2 so it goes

I have no idea why any country/people would want such a designation. What a bunch of foolishness.

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The UNESCO designation process is as corrupt as FIFA selecting cities for the World Cup.

The allies keep finding ways to bomb Germany.

People need to get where they need to be. Other people's feelings don't really matter. If they can't find a way to feel good about their community having happier people, that's too bad.

Next time you make a video, TURN THE DAMN MUZAK DOWN so we can hear the commentary without straining!

Honestly never understood why Dresden or Liverpool were world heritage sites. Too many in the comments are forgetting what being a heritage site is supposed to be. Good for the cities for choosing to improve the lives of the residents over preservation but then don’t be bitter about losing the heritage status either.

Oof the ignorance of the comments section is baffling! The fact that you most of you don’t get that there are contemporary solutions to preservation and character and all it takes is political will and good professionals, is just sad.

Even the humblest, most crappy bridge is a marvel of human development. How jaded are these people that they think it subtracts from anything? Especially this one, it looks clean and it isn't some kind of eyesore.

Because their slogan was if you are naked Dresden

Dresden is an impressive place to visit. Why did they not exclude the section where the bridge was going to be when sending in the application? It's not as if there is anything of great interest along that stretch?

I don't think UNESCO maintained its integrity by stripping Dresden of World Heritage status, quite the opposite. The notion that you can put a city under a bell jar is absurd, you have to anticipate there will be growth and change. And if UNESCO judges that a simple bridge with a subtle aesthetic can somehow nullify the cultural value of an entire city that is almost a thousand years old... they are a joke.

A lot of Structures in Europe doesn’t deserve UNESCO World Heritage designation because it’s not culturally or historically significant. Just pretty old buildings.

most boring video ever just so i can serve people mod rolls. people like you are seriously scum.

Stupid cars

So, better traffic or a stupid title? the former for sure.

It's always a mistake to stand in the way of progress. We don't live in a museum, there will always be need for new buildings to improve peoples living conditions. A shame for the loss of the heritage status, but rather that than the bridge.

As some one who worked in Dresden in the late 90's I must say I never crossed the Elbe - the work then on the Frauenkirche from a pile of rubble was spectacular. The changes made from 89 when I had first visited were huge and I can believe that small items like a much needed bridge would have been of lesser interest -Unesco = Bureaucracy how much should a city invest?

once again the car addiction has consequences

Meh, I would honestly rather have useful infrastructure than some stupid title that means nothing anyways. Its funny how much useless crap we give value in our society.

Lol. They ditched the title for a stupid bridge. Morons.