Description

Frank Lloyd Wright’s spectacular design for the Beth Sholom Temple in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania (1957), whose form resembles a glazed ark, heralded a greater awareness of modern synagogue architecture outside of Jewish circles. However, with the exception of its sculptural form, a late echo of the crystalline expressionism of Bruno Taut, it offered few new impulses for synagogue architecture. Like many synagogue spaces designed for the reformed ritual, the central prayer hall, which lacked a women’s gallery, could have served equally well for Christian rituals. Nevertheless, the prominence achieved by Wright’s building encouraged other Jewish congregations to build symbolic synagogues, paving the way for others such as Percival Goodman, perhaps the most prolific synagogue architect of the 20th century.

Synagogue Architecture in the 20th Century

A year before Wright’s synagogue in Elkins Park, Goodman had completed the Temple Beth Sholom in Miami Beach, Florida. Covered by a sort of celestial dome and illuminated by coloured glass arcade windows typical of the fifties, the synagogue makes reference to the large dome of Erich Mendelsohn’s Park Synagogue in Cleveland, Ohio (1953). In this seminal building of modern Jewish sacred architecture in North America, the holy area containing the Torah roll, known as the “Ark of the Law”, is highlighted by a baldachin, recalling the tent of the tabernacle that provided the Israelites an enclosure for the Ark of the Covenant during their wanderings in the desert. Similarly, in Philip Johnson’s Temple Kneses Tifereth Israel in Port Chester, New York (1956), a steel structure clad with concrete and glass panels, the interior features an arching baldachin that can also be read as a re-interpretation of the tabernacle. This Jewish architectonic symbol, popular particularly among the liberal, reformed and conservative congregations, is most powerfully expressed in the monumental, tent-like interior of the Congregation Israel Synagogue by Minoru Yamasaki in Glencoe, Illinois (1964), or the roof of the Mount Sinai Synagogue, shaped like a folded cloth, by Sidney Eisenshtat in El Paso, Texas (1962).

In search of a suitable architectonic expression, such buildings soon began to recall the imagery of Noah’s ark, the tabernacle or the Temple in Jerusalem, breaking with the historicist tradition that had characterised synagogue architecture in Europe and America since its emancipation by the reform movement in the early 19th century. At that time, seminal buildings such as Gottfried Semper’s Synagogue in Dresden (1840) were erected. On the one hand, its Romanesque exterior strove for assimilation, while on the other hand, its Moorish-inspired sacred interior reminded the believers of their Middle Eastern origins. Soon after, such oriental forms began to appear on synagogue exteriors expressing a newly awakened self-awareness, as can be seen in the richly decorated synagogues in Berlin, Budapest or in some American cities. Such exuberant decoration, also evident in art deco synagogues like the Israelitische Religionsgesellschaft by Walter Henauer and Ernst Witschi in Zurich (1924), first began to disappear with the advent of classical modernism – for example, in Fritz Landauer’s synagogue in Plauen (1930) whose exterior was a plain white box resting on a red plinth.

After the Second World War, the migration of many affluent Jews to the American suburbs caused a boom in synagogue architecture in which the buildings described earlier arose. In Europe, however,­ after the trauma of the Shoah, the congregations stagnated as many of the survivors emigrated to Israel.­ In Israel, only a few notable sacred buildings were erected – for example the inflated parachute-like Israel Goldstein Synagogue at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem by Heinz Rau and David­ Reznik (1957), or Zvi Hecker’s Military Academy Synagogue in the Negev desert, a form of Brutalist architecture erected some ten years later. Architecturally interesting congregational synagogues are rare in Israel, as formal aspects do not play an important role for orthodox Jews and because secular Israelis­ rarely form congregations with their synagogues. However, in the newly erected towns, a few interesting sacred buildings can be found, for instance the two synagogues by Nahum Solotow in Beer Sheba (1961 and 1979).

Pioneering New Buildings from Louis Kahn to Mario Botta

One of the most significant and internationally acclaimed attempts to design the synagogue as a sacred, even mystical space was Louis Kahn’s project for the new Hurva Synagogue in the Jewish quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, which was undertaken between 1967 and 1974 in order to replace the earlier synagogue of the same name that was destroyed in the War of Independence of 1948. In contrast to the church-like sanctuaries of the grandiose American synagogues, Kahn’s Hurva Synagogue sought to reinterpret the traditional orthodox interior as a square space with a women’s gallery, gently illuminated by modulated light. Later, Moshe Safdie referred to the temple-like spatial disposition of Kahn’s “World Synagogue”, as the then-mayor Teddy Kollek called it, in his own design for a synagogue for the Porat Yosef Yeshiva in Jerusalem.

Kahn’s project was studied with interest in western Europe, not least because very few interesting Jewish sacred buildings at the time had been built according to orthodox customs – by way of example, Walter Sonanini’s modern box-like Agudas Achim Synagogue with its coloured vertical windows, built in Zurich in 1960. West Germany was an exception. After the Holocaust, the cautiously reforming congregations built small synagogues in the manner of their American cousins, among them such noteworthy buildings as Dieter Knoblauch and Heinz Heise’s igloo-like synagogue in Essen (1959), or the half-oval synagogue by Hermann Guttmann in Hanover (1960), which followed an orthodox Ashkenazi spatial arrangement. However, the most extraordinary new building of this time in Europe was Angelo di Castro’s freestanding polygonal architectural sculpture with a tent-like interior, which was built to replace its destroyed predecessor in Livorno in 1962.

It was not until some 35 years after Guttmann and di Castro’s buildings that the Ticinese architect Mario Botta was to achieve a new masterpiece of European synagogue architecture. Commissioned by a pair of Swiss benefactors, the Cymbalista Synagogue was not built on the “old continent” at all but on the campus of Tel Aviv University. This monument with its cosmic symbolism of twin cuboid and cylindrical towers appears as an interpretation of the Temple of Solomon, primarily due to its two entrance columns commemorating Boaz and Jachin. It can also be regarded as a quint­essential example of Jewish sacred architecture alongside earlier predecessors such as the Altneushul (Old-New Synagogue) in Prague, the holy sites at Córdoba and Toledo and Louis Kahn’s project for the Hurva Synagogue.

The baldachin-like roofed-over space of the synagogue illuminated by segment-shaped roof lights that echoes an almost identical volume for an assembly hall in the west tower, can be regarded as typologically ideal. A raised platform known as the bimah (stage) or almemor (pulpit), which is used for reading from the Torah roll is positioned in the centre of the space. The seating is arranged around these according to the Sephardic tradition. The women’s section is symbolically separated from the men’s seating by a step and balustrade, as was common in ancient synagogues. The aron ha-kodesh (the holy shrine) in which the Torah rolls are kept is placed in front of the mizrah wall, the rear wall that faces Jerusalem. To one side stands the pulpit from which the prayer service is led and the ner tamid (the “eternal lamp”) lights from the wall.

The Design of the Synagogue Space

Botta’s synagogue unites all the important elements of a Jewish service. Ever since the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, this service has centred on readings from the Torah and communal prayer. A so-called minyan, a gathering of any group of ten men over the age of 13, is all that is formally required for a Jewish service to take place; the space or form of the synagogue itself is less important. The basic form developed during the late Hellenic period from the typology of the basilica and has changed according to regional building traditions over the centuries. Ideally, it should be lit from above and the seating arranged such that there is sufficient space for the transport of the Torah from the shrine to the bimah.

As the shrine and bimah come into contact with the Torah, the most holy element of the Jewish service, they are often richly decorated. The shrine is usually slightly raised and located in front of or in a niche in the mizrah wall, which always faces towards Jerusalem. In an orthodox Ashkenazi synagogue, which follows central and eastern European tradition, the bimah is placed in the centre of the room, the chairs or benches surrounding it in a U-form. In a Sephardic synagogue, which follows the Spanish tradition, the bimah is raised and placed at the opposite end of the room from the shrine. The seating is arranged along both sides of the central axis along which the Torah is transported. In the synagogues of more liberal Jewish congregations, the shrine, bimah, the pulpit for the person leading prayers and the seat of the Rabbi are all arranged on a raised platform in front of the mizrah wall.

In liberal reformed synagogues, which in the United States are often called “Temples”, there is no distinct spatial separation of genders, the seating being arranged much like a lecture hall. Should such a synagogue have a gallery, this is either for the organ or for additional capacity. By contrast, in orthodox synagogues, the men’s and women’s seating areas must be separated, usually by locating the women’s section on a gallery. Other solutions are also possible, as shown by the ancient traditional division chosen in the Cymbalista Synagogue. In the Middle Ages, the women’s section in Ashkenazi synagogues was separated by a glazed screen as can be seen in the synagogue in Worms, the Altneushul in Prague, or the Old Synagogue in Krakow. In Spain at around the same time, women’s galleries were already typical as can be seen, for example, in Córdoba or Toledo. Galleries can also be found in Renaissance and baroque synagogues founded in Italy, southern France or Amsterdam by Iberian Jews who had fled persecution, before they also became popular in Ashkenazi congregations in the 19th century.

A Theory of Synagogue Design

In addition to these fundamental elements of Jewish sacred spaces, one also finds symbolic objects, for example the aforementioned eternal lamp, the seven-armed candelabrum that commemorates the Menorah of the Temple in Jerusalem, the tablets of the commandments or the pair of columns commemorating Boaz and Jachin in the Temple of Solomon. In many cases, these symbols, together with a richly decorated Torah shrine, are used to make synagogue spaces that have a more church-like character appear identifiably Jewish. Troubled by this watering down of tradition, Salomon Korn, an architect and currently the vice president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, published a treatise entitled “Synagoge ’88” in the catalogue accompanying the exhibition “Die Architektur der Synagoge” (Synagogue Architecture) held in Frankfurt in 1988. His theory on the contemporary design of Ashkenazi synagogues was to become influential throughout the German-speaking world.

Korn held the notion that there is no specific Jewish form of sacred building, but argued that Ashkenazi orthodox synagogues do have an “original spatial arrangement”. The central position of the bimah and the position of the Torah shrine embedded in the mizrah wall necessitate a dual spatial arrangement that is both centralised and longitudinal. Faced with the resultant “spatial antinomy” of the synagogue, architects should create a hybrid continuum in the form of a centralised yet elongated building, or an elongated yet centralised building. The women’s galleries could be made to serve this purpose. An architectonic expression of the tension between the “temporary” tabernacle and “permanent” temple offers further potential. A baldachin suspended from the stone exterior skin could emphasise the longitudinal axis towards the Torah shrine, while a light positioned above the bimah could accentuate the centre. Furthermore, the various components of synagogues should be translated into a contemporary architectural language.

Korn’s guidelines were published at precisely the right moment. Shortly after, as a result of the upheavals in communist eastern Europe, tens of thousands of Jews migrated to Germany from the former nations of the Soviet Union, necessitating the building of further Jewish congregational buildings, thereby making Germany the centre of innovative synagogue architecture. The most impressive proof of this development was the architectural competition held in 1997 for the building of a Jewish community centre on the site of the former synagogue in Dresden, which included entries from internationally renowned architects such as Zvi Hecker, Daniel Libeskind, Heinz Tesar and Livio Vacchini. The range of designs submitted would make, in and of themselves, an instructive pattern book of contemporary synagogue architecture.

In Dresden, the third-placed project by Wandel Hoefer Lorch and Hirsch was selected. Drawing on Korn’s theory, the team of young architects created a complex that, like Botta’s synagogue, consists of two bipolar stone volumes. The community centre, with a frontage like a glass cabinet, looks out over the central courtyard towards the almost hermetically sealed cuboid form of the synagogue – reached from the southwest – which twists gradually eastwards with each course of block work. Within this outer volume, a baldachin-like cloth of gold shimmering thread is draped over the sanctuary, enclosing the Torah shrine, the bimah and women’s gallery, which are inserted beneath it like pieces of furniture. Illuminated almost mysteriously by a skylight, the inner space of the synagogue refers to the tabernacle, its monolithic stone exterior to the Temple of Jerusalem, expressing in their opposition what Korn described as the “conflict between stability and fragility, between the permanent and the transitory”. Although dictated in part by theory, the design for Dresden has resulted in an atmospheric building and a space that, like Kahn’s designs for Hurva, is characterised by spirituality, mysticism, light and shadow.

In contrast, one of the most prolific synagogue architects in Europe, Alfred Jacoby, pays little heed to Korn’s theory. In the last 17 years he has built seven Jewish community centres in Aachen, Chemnitz, Darmstadt, Heidelberg, Kassel, Cologne and Offenbach. In the new synagogue in Chemnitz (2002) the Torah shrine is elevated above the congregation, crowning the oval shaped synagogue in a cabinet-like enclosure that can be seen from outside. This suggestive building, its form fusing the axial with the radial, and – contradicting Korn – featuring a liberally designed interior, is a far cry from his earlier synagogue project for Aachen. In Aachen, the unconventional solution proposed by the Swiss architect Roger Diener would have been a more interesting choice. Taking the form of a simple hall lit from above, his design eschewed the traditional use of the gallery as a means of achieving the orthodox separation of men’s and women’s seating areas, and instead proposed – drawing on the Romanesque principle of additive forms as illustrated in Worms – locating the women’s section in a perpendicular addition on the north side of the synagogue that opened onto the main space. By arranging this space directly opposite the bimah, he emphasised the central point of the otherwise longitudinal building, resolving the “spatial antimony” of the synagogue in an original manner.

Architectonic Symbols in Germany

In 1999, Manuel Herz, who previously worked with Daniel Libeskind on the competition entries for the synagogues in Dresden and Duisburg, caused a sensation with his winning design for the synagogue in Mainz. This project, scheduled to begin construction in 2008, promises to be one of the most architecturally interesting Jewish centres in Germany. The striking appearance of the sacred space and community centre is based on a stylised representation of the five Hebrew letters of the word “Qedushah”, (blessing), elevating the complex from the worldly to the sacred. Inspired by the object-quality of the Hebrew letters, Herz employs them “almost like building blocks”. The synagogue is represented by the Hebrew character K or “qof”, whose triangular shape opens upwards towards the heavens, while the letters “daled”, “waw”, “shin”, and “he” define the outline of the entrance foyer, community rooms and school. The result is an urban ensemble, a miniature city, in which the synagogue is the tallest building. Its funnel-like roof floods the bimah with light, defining the focus of the elongated building and thereby resolving the spatial antinomy of the synagogue. Finally, the exterior cladding in turquoise brickwork refers to Jewish oriental tradition.

A second project that shares a reference to writing, expressiveness and abstract symbolism is Zvi Hecker’s Jewish community centre in Duisburg. Five extending concrete arm-like portals represent the open pages of the Book of Books, which according to Hecker is responsible for upholding Jewish identity in the Diaspora over the millennia. The triangular space of the synagogue tapers towards the raised platform with Torah shrine and bimah, and is closely interwoven with the plan of the community centre, occupying only a modest part of the overall complex. From the outset, Hecker, a worldly-minded Israeli, saw the needs of the predominantly immigrant congregation as being of central importance – so much so that here the modern tendency “from temple to community centre” has resulted in a complex where the synagogue no longer forms the heart of the building.

A diametrically opposed solution was adopted by the architects Wandel Hoefer Lorch, in their design for the Ohel Jakob Synagogue in Munich. Here, the synagogue serves as the sculptural focus of a complex that also includes a community centre and Jewish museum. Since its completion in spring 2007, the ensemble represents the largest Jewish centre in Europe. Of the three distinct but closely spaced volumes arranged around the Jakobsplatz, the multifunctional community centre adjoins an existing building forming a courtyard and fusing with the historical structure of the city, and allowing the minimalist sculptural form of the freestanding synagogue to take centre stage. Illuminated at night and shrouded in a mesh-like tessellation of the Star of David, a glazed lantern appears to rise out of a high rough-hewn travertine plinth that recalls the Wailing Wall – a visible expression of the relationship between the tabernacle and temple. Light from above floods into the wood-clad warm interior of the synagogue. Here the women’s seating area is slightly raised and runs along both long sides of the room, following a similar arrangement to that adopted by Mario Botta in Tel Aviv.

Tradition Over Experimentation in the United States

The artistic experimentation with architectonic signs and symbols evident in contemporary European synagogue architecture has little in common with the unassuming utility of recent synagogue architecture in the U.S. For the most part, American synagogue architecture has proceeded without a specific theory of Jewish sacred architecture. The last noteworthy attempt in this respect was Stanley Tigerman’s treatise-like concept for the Or Shalom Temple in Chicago, Illinois (1986). By placing a barn-like prayer room within a hall of columns, Tigerman predates Korn in his attempt to unite the two contradictory ancient Jewish symbols of the tabernacle and the temple. Furthermore, through this synthesis of the temporary and the eternal, he attempts to express “the anxiety of an exilic people in an alien land”.

Nevertheless, in the last 20 years, some impressive buildings have been built. A notable example is Norman C. Jaffe’s Gates of the Grove reform synagogue in East Hampton, New York (1989), whose shingle-clad form recalls the wooden synagogues of eastern Europe and whose interior sets up a tension between the Torah shrine and the central bimah. In the United States, truly innovative synagogue buildings and projects are few and far between. This is all the more surprising given the shift towards congregations that cater for ever more individual needs and the growth of the Jewish population in the Southwest, which has necessitated the building of more synagogues. Of these, William P. Bruder’s Temple Kol Ami in Scottsdale, Arizona (1994) is an interesting example. Although the space of the synagogue appears more like that of an unassuming association meeting hall, the community centre, which is conceived as a small village, communicates an atmosphere of warmth and shelter. More recently, a renewed interest in the old Ashkenazi spatial arrangement, as already manifested in East Hampton, can be observed in the United States. Projects such as the Agudas Achim Synagogue in Austin, Texas by David Lake and Ted Flato (2001) testify to this. The decorative interior design once so popular in liberal synagogues such as Ben Shahn’s stained-glass window in the sculptural Temple Beth Zion by Wallace K. Harrison and Max Abramovitz in Buffalo, New York (1967), or Louise Nevelson’s relief-like white shrine wall in Armand Bartos’ Temple Beth El in Great Neck, New York (1970), is becoming less common. Such artistically fertile times also brought forth organic buildings such as Kenneth Triester’s Gumenick Chapel of the Temple Israel in Miami, Florida (1969), which resembles a giant concrete sculpture. Whereas in the United States such fusions of art and sacred building have now largely become outmoded, the trend towards sculptural experiments in synagogue architecture in Europe remains as popular as ever.

Selected Bibliography

Brülls, Holger: Räume für die Rede vom redenden Gott. Probleme zeitgenössischer Synagogenarchitektur in Deutschland, in: Kunst und Kirche, no. 4/2001, pp. 215-



Calabi, Donatella: L’emancipazione degli ebrei e l’architettura della sinagoga. Qualche esempio in Europa, in: Architettura e spazio sacro nella modernità, exhibition catalogue, Milan 1992, pp. 73-



Carlebach, Joseph: Die Architektur der Synagoge, in: Gillis-Carlebach, Miriam (Ed.): Joseph Carlebach, Ausgewählte Schriften Vol. II, Hildesheim and New York 1982, pp. 1229-



Grimmer, Vera: Heinz Tesar. Dva projekta za pamcenje, in: Oris, Nr. 6/2000, pp. 102-



Gruber, Samuel D.: American Synagogues. A Century of Architecture and Jewish Community, New York 2003



Guttmann, Hermann Zvi: Vom Tempel zum Gemeindezentrum. Synagogen im Nachkriegsdeutschland, Frankfurt am Main 1989



Hammer-Schenk, Harold: Synagogen in Deutschland. Geschichte einer Baugattung im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (1780-1933), 2 volumes, Hamburg 1981



Harlap, Amiram: Synagogues in Israel. From the Ancient to the Modern, n.p. 1984



Herz, Manuel: Licht der Diaspora. Jüdisches Gemeindezentrum Mainz, in: Kunst und Kirche, no. 4/2001, pp. 249-


Gespräch mit Architekt Manuel Herz, in: Kunst und Kirche, no. 4/2001, pp. 252-



Hollenstein, Roman: Citadel of Faith. Mario Botta’s Cymbalista Synagogue in Tel Aviv, in: Mario Botta. The Cymbalista Synagogue and Jewish Heritage Center, Milan 2001, pp. 25-



Kent, Robin: The Tabernacle. The Oldest Building Specification known written by Moses under God’s Instruction, in: RIBA Journal, no. 5/1985, pp. 20-



Korn, Salomon: Synagoge ’88 – ein Entwurf, in: Schwarz, Hans-Peter (Ed.): Die Architektur der Synagoge, exhibition catalogue, Stuttgart 1988, pp. 344-



Krinsky, Carol Herselle: Synagogues of Europe. Architecture, History, Meaning, New York and London 1996



Larson, Kent: Louis I. Kahn. Unbuilt Masterworks, New York 2000, pp. 124-, p. 231



Luzzatto, Amos: Lo sviluppo della struttura sinagogale, in: Architettura e spazio sacro nella modernità, exhibition catalogue, Milan 1992, pp. 82-



McCarter, Robert: Louis I. Kahn, London and New York 2005, pp. 412-, p. 502



Meek, Harold A.: The Synagogue, London 1995



Nerdinger, Winfried (Ed.): Heinz Tesar Architektur, exhibition catalgue, Munich and Milan 2005, pp. 210-, p. 294



Sachs, Angeli, van Voolen, Edward (Ed.): Jewish Identity in Contemporary Architecture, Munich 2004



Schwarz, Hans-Peter (Ed.): Die Architektur der Synagoge, exhibition catalogue, Stuttgart 1988



Seidl, Ernst (Ed.): Lexikon der Bautypen. Funktionen und Formen der Architektur, Stuttgart 2006, articles on Mikwe pp. 354- and Synagoge pp. 480-



Stolzman, Henry, Stolzman, Daniel: Synagogue Architecture in America. Faith, Spirit and Identity, Mulgrave 2004


Synagogen in der Schweiz, in: Kunst und Architektur in der Schweiz, no. 2/2005, pp. 1-



Technische Universität Darmstadt, Fachgebiet CAD in der Architektur (Ed.): Synagogen in Deutschland. Eine virtuelle Rekonstruktion, exhibition catalogue, Basel 2004



Terracina, Sergio: Nota su alcune sinagoghe costruite in Germania dal 1945 ad oggi, in: Architettura e spazio sacro nella modernità, exhibition catalogue, Milan 1992, pp. 95-



Turner, Harold W.: From Temple to Meeting House. The Phenomenology and Theology of Places of Worship, The Hague 1979, pp. 47-, pp. 278-, pp. 369, pp. 383-84



Zaggia, Stefano: Itinerario attraverso l’architettura della Sinagoga Europea nella modernità, in: Architettura e spazio sacro nella modernità, exhibition catalogue, Milan 1992, pp. 86-

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Originally published in: Rudolf Stegers, Sacred Buildings: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2008.