Antique map - Darmstadt 1917

Pharus-Plan of Darmstadt in 1917: capital of the last Grand Duchy of Hesse, home of Empress Alexandra, city of Jugendstil and science.

This Pharus-Plan shows Darmstadt in 1917. At that time, the city was the capital of the Grand Duchy of Hesse (Großherzogtum Hessen, or Hesse-Darmstadt), a state of the German Empire. It had been the residence of the Landgraves of Hesse-Darmstadt since 1567 and the capital of the Grand Duchy since 1806. Today, it is located in the German state of Hesse (Hessen), and its name is the same in French and German. It first appeared in the late 11th century as Darmundestat.

Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig, who reigned from 1892 to 1918, was the grandson of Queen Victoria and the brother of Empress Alexandra of Russia, born Alix of Hesse in Darmstadt. In March 1917, the year of the map, his brother-in-law, Tsar Nicholas II, abdicated. The following year, in 1918, it was the Grand Duke's turn to abdicate, and the city became the capital of the Volksstaat Hessen, the People's State of Hesse.

Places and neighborhoods shown:

• The Mathildenhöhe - the hill east of the city center, where Ernst Ludwig founded the Darmstadt Artists' Colony in 1899, one of the centers of Jugendstil, German Art Nouveau. Seven artists were invited there, including Peter Behrens and Joseph Maria Olbrich, under the motto "May my Hesse flourish, and art with it". The first exhibition took place in 1901, and the Hochzeitsturm, the Wedding Tower, was built in 1908 by Olbrich. The colony still existed in 1917; it effectively ceased to exist with the abdication of 1918. The Mathildenhöhe has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2021.
• The castle and its gardens - the map shows the Schloß and its Schloßgarten in the heart of the city, then the Herrngarten, a landscaped park, and further south the Grand Ducal estate ("Großh. Hof") with its Orangerie.
• The Technische Hochschule - the polytechnic school of Darmstadt, founded in 1877, became the world's first university to establish a chair of electrical engineering in 1882. It is the predecessor of today's TU Darmstadt, which has given the city its title of "city of science" (Wissenschaftsstadt) since 1997.
• The Merck factory - at the far north of the map, the "Chm. Fabrik v. Merck" recalls the origins of the world's oldest pharmaceutical company: in 1668, Friedrich Jacob Merck bought the Engel-Apotheke pharmacy in Darmstadt.
• The four railway stations - the map shows the Hauptbahnhof to the west, the Nordbahnhof, the Ostbahnhof and the Südbahnhof, as well as the railway workshops (Zentral-Werkstätte). The legend distinguishes the railway, the tramway (Strassenbahn) and the steam tramway (Dampfstrassenbahn).
• The military district - southwest of the city center, the map shows cavalry and artillery barracks, supply and ammunition depots, and vast training grounds: Darmstadt was then a garrison town, in the midst of war.
• The Grand Woog and the Gartenstadt - the plan shows the Große Woog, a pond east of the city center, the Hohler Weg garden city to the northeast, and the Rosenhöhe, a landscaped park to the east.

Cartographic reference: this "Pharus-Plan Darmstadt" belongs to the same series as the 1917 plans of Berlin, Aachen, Bremen, Breslau, Koblenz and Cologne, with the railway stations in red and the buildings drawn in perspective. Exclusive distribution was entrusted to the Verkehrsverein of Darmstadt, the city's tourist office. The banners of the Magdeburgische Zeitung frame the map on the sides, and a grid of letters and numbers allows each location to be identified.

In short: for anyone with ties to Darmstadt or Hesse, or who loves Jugendstil, the history of the great ruling families, or the city of science, this map shows the capital of a small German state, in the year of the Tsar's downfall, one year before the end of the Grand Duchy.

What area does this map of Darmstadt cover? It covers Darmstadt and its surroundings: the city center around the castle, the four railway stations, the military district, the Mathildenhöhe and the Grand Woog, the Rosenhöhe, the garden city, and the neighboring forests.

In what year was this map published? This map dates from 1917. It was published by Pharus-Verlag in Berlin.

Reproduction of the "Pharus-Plan Darmstadt", published in 1917 by Pharus-Verlag in Berlin.

Printed on 200 g/m² textured art paper. Portrait orientation, standard sizes 50x70cm and 70x100cm: easy to frame.