While exploring the Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Realm World Heritage Site, a Doric domed building may attract your attention. Then, you have found the former mausoleum of the Dukes of Anhalt in Dessau-Roßlau. [German]
The Mausoleum in Dessau-Roßlau
While walking through the Georgium, one of the many parks in the Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Realm, I came across the entrance to the zoo of the city of Dessau-Roßlau. Instead of enclosures with wild animals, a mighty domed building in the High Renaissance style rose behind a long meadow.
I was puzzled. I would have expected this type of architecture in a cemetery rather than a zoo. Indeed, the building once served as a mausoleum for the Dukes of Anhalt. It saw its construction between 1894 and 1898. At that time, a park surrounded the mausoleum.
Zoological garden of Dessau-Roßlau
In 1958, this mausoleum park transformed into the present-day Dessau Zoo. This zoological garden emphasises animals from South America and Australia, endangered domestic animal breeds and small Eurasian carnivores. Walk-in facilities allow you to observe cranes and wading birds.