With the eleventh volume, "Mainz," of the MONUMENTE edition, published by the German Foundation for Monument Protection, the well-established author duo Angela Pfotenhauer and Elmar Lixenfeld turn their attention to another city in the Rhine-Main urban landscape after "Frankfurt am Main." The capital of Rhineland-Palatinate has enjoyed special status since Roman times as a fortified city and since the Frankish period as a bishop's seat.

The book describes the historical development of the city, starting with the old town and its Romanesque cathedral, which ennobles Mainz as a bishop's residence dating back more than a thousand years, through the urban expansion planned by urban planner Eduard Kreyßig since the 1870s, to the incorporation of suburbs such as Weisenau and Hechtsheim along the Rhine and in the hinterland.

Mainz immediately brings to mind the Gutenberg Museum, which pays extensive tribute to the inventor of printing. Equally well known are the Chagall windows in the parish church of St. Stephan and the Museum of Ancient Seafaring, which are also featured in this volume. Angela Pfotenhauer and Elmar Lixenfeld bring the cultural heritage they encounter on their forays through the city to life in well-researched, stylistically cheerful essays and first-class photographic material.

The authors pay particular attention to the architecture of the 1960s and 1970s, demonstrating a keen sense of balance, as it is post-war modernism that is now more than ever threatened by demolition and disappearance. Mainz has a lot of this type of building fabric, which is the subject of heated debate among the city's residents, such as Mainz City Hall, a building designed by Danish architect Arne Jacobsen in 1973. All this diversity in the cityscape means that this book does not read like a city guide in the sense of a list of cultural monuments. As a reading and picture book, it reveals the urban and historical contexts that determine today's preservation of historical monuments.

In Mainz, many private initiatives are now taking care of endangered cultural monuments such as Mainz Castle, thus establishing a committed grassroots preservation movement, which is enthusiastically presented throughout the book. Despite great losses due to war damage or demolition, there is a civic awareness in Mainz for the preservation of historic buildings with which people identify, for an expanded concept of monuments, and it is precisely this attitude that this book is dedicated to. The two authors illustrate what many Mainz residents can learn anew about their city and invite city travelers to discover new things far from the usual cultural itineraries.