Bad Ems / Bad Kissingen / Baden – Baden / Baden bei Wien / Bath / Františkovy Lázně / Karlovy Vary / Mariánské Lázně / Montecatini Terme / Spa / Vichy
Great Spa Towns of Europe is a group of eleven spa towns across seven countries that were inscribed on 24th July 2021 on UNESCO’s World Heritage List as a transnational serial ‘property’.
The property – eleven places developed around mineral springs – provides exceptional testimony to a complex, and unprecedented urban typology and cultural movement – the spa town. The Great Spa Towns of Europe marks the greatest development of this phenomenom.
Natural mineral water is the catalyst for this innovative model of spatial organisation, architectural prototypes, landscape design and holistic attitudes to health and leisure. The spa town is the only European settlement type to be in cultural competition with the great metropolises.
Spa buildings such as pump rooms, drinking halls, treatment facilities and colonnades directly harness the resource of natural spring water. Assembly rooms, casinos, theatres, hotels and villas, parades and gardens followed.
Integrated into a coherent whole the property inspired great intellectual, artistic, social and political endeavour, contributing to the transformation of European society. Its sustained function as a series of curative venues for body, mind and spirit ensures a continued contribution to European culture, behaviour, health and customs.
The official website of Great Spa Towns of Europe: www.greatspatownsofeurope.eu.
