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The history of the Neo - Renaissance villa Winckelmannstr. no. 6
Dear guests, thank you for your visit to the Hotel and Restaurant Kipping, and for your interest in the history of our building.
In 1850/51 the area beneath the "Plauenscher Schlag" ( the aerial behind of the
railroad station ), along the main roads leading south and southeast from Dresden, was opened for construction. Just five years later the "Schweizer Straße" ( Swiss Street ) was laid out, getting its name from a pub that stood along it called "Zum Schweizerhäuschen" ( Häuschen this is a little house ). The pub in turn got its name because at the time was a good view of the scenic Saxon Switzerland from it. Little by little the so-called "Schweizer Viertel" ( Swiss Quarter ) emerged – and became home to Dresden's upper middle class.
Our villa was commissioned in 1884 in Neo - Renaissance style by a businessman named Haymann.
Today our building has landmark status and is under a preservation order, as it was one of just
a few buildings of its type to survive the bombing of 13th of February 1945. ( Ninety percent of the houses in the Schweizer Viertel were destroyed. ) In the hotel entrance hall you can see an aerial photo from 1925 which shows the layout around the train station at the time.
We have an eyewitness account from Mr. H.-J. Dietze, a Dresden city guide, who remembers: "Escaping after endless hours deep in a cellar at the train station, dodging flying embers and the collapsing walls of houses, with our last strength we reached the building at Winckelmannstr. 6. For us and many others it became an island of safety in a raging firestorm."
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