Description

With nearly 30,000 students, the University of Tel Aviv is probably the largest academic institution in Israel. Surrounded by traffic arteries and featuring a number of buildings of architectural note, the campus is like a city within the city, indeed in parts like a palm-tree island. Towards the end of the nineties, the centre of the complex was developed and expanded, enriching it both aesthetically and symbolically. This improvement is due largely to the contribution of the Swiss benefactors Norbert and Paulette Cymbalista, who were responsible for commissioning the architect to build a synagogue on the university campus. They are likewise responsible for the building becoming built reality and their contribution is recognised in the name of this house of prayer and learning.

The Cymbalista Synagogue with its 4.6 metre high plinth occupies a rectangular footprint of 31.25 by 23.9 metres. Two large, identical volumes rise out of the low rectangular box of the plinth. Like stumps or towers, they extend outwards and upwards, changing shape in the process. The structure and the skin of the stumps were constructed in one and the same process. The inner skin made of reinforced concrete had to be crafted finely – reflecting the slow and continual transition of the towers from a cube to a cylinder – so that it fits the outer skin, made of Pietra di Prun, as precisely as possible. This fossil-rich limestone from Veneto alternates in colour between white-red and white-brown and its unusual strength was valued in ancient times for the construction of Romanesque basilica such as the Basilica San Zeno Maggiore in Verona. In Tel Aviv, each course of the long stone blockwork cantilevers outwards, softening the transition between the rigorous geometric forms of the volumes.

The entrances are located directly in the centre of the long sides of the synagogue’s plinth. The entrance to the north is marked by two white round pillars, which commemorate Jachin and Boaz and refer to the bronze pillars in front of the Temple of Solomon. They identify the north façade as the main face of the building. One enters into a narrow but deep entrance hall which opens onto a hall on the left and one on the right, each 48 square metres in size. The hall on the east is a museum with a collection of Judaica, the hall to the west a library with writings relating to the Torah and Talmud. Following the curve beyond the two small halls, one reaches two larger halls. The correspondence between the former and the latter is functional; the orthodox synagogue lies behind the museum, the synagogue for conservative and reformed Jewish ceremonies lies behind the library.

The interiors of the concrete structure in the two large rooms are clad with Pietra Dorata sandstone from Tuscany. The matt beige and distinct vein of the soft stone contrasts markedly with the black granite of the floor. At floor level, each of the rooms is 10.5 metres long and wide. Together with the ceiling – its timber coffered structure is suspended at a height of 10.5 metres – these dimensions would describe the outline of a pure cube were it not for the fact that the walls widen outwards as they rise, changing shape so that above the height of the ceiling and a row of small windows the square has transformed into a cylinder. In the resulting space between the edges of the square ceiling and the circular perimeter of the external walls, daylight falls through four inclined glazed segments shedding sharp strips and sweeping curves of light across the Pietra Dorata walls.

The orthodox synagogue follows the spatial arrangement of the Sephardi tradition. The shrine for the Torah lies in the centre of the east wall, framed by a surround of translucent alabaster from Pakistan. The bimah is positioned in front, a little way into the room. Benches are arranged to the left and right of the pulpit and the congregation sees the Torah rolls from the side. To avoid disrupting the unity of the space and its birch furnishings, there is no gallery. The separation of men’s and women’s seating area is nevertheless fulfilled – the women sit slightly raised at the rear, the men lower down at the front. The areas are separated from one another by a metal balustrade.

The synagogue for conservative and reformed Jewish ceremonies is an auditorium that the University of Tel Aviv also uses for conferences and lectures. A podium and apse are located in the centre of the west wall and naturally illuminated from the left and right. The mobile seating, with the name “Laleggera” has been designed by Ricardo Blumer. For Jewish services a Torah shrine is wheeled into the room on rollers.

Given the fact that the Jewish culture is primarily one of the word, many synagogue designs in the nineties have attempted to derive their form from language and the book. The synagogue in Tel Aviv eschews such references. The architect chose instead to pursue his ongoing interest in a reduced and expressive geometry. His preoccupation with the relationship between square and circle, cube and cylinder is evident in much of his work – for example his early villas in Ticino. Notable earlier sacred works include the Parish church of the Blessed Odorico of Pordenone completed in 1992 and Parish of San Pietro Apostolo in Sartirana from 1995. In both of these churches, the main space has a circular plan enclosed within a surrounding square of more or less equal dimensions. In the Cymbalista Synagogue, however, the transition between the two figures is more harmonious and rigorous than ever before. In addition, the Cymbalista Synagogue bears a similarity to Louis I. Kahn’s project for the Hurva Synagogue in Jerusalem. In both projects, wall, opening and light serve the same single purpose: the spatial experience of the spiritual and the monumental.

Although the architect values the “intrinsic qualities” of his architecture on the green campus more than its symbolism, he has nevertheless created a kind of memorial for the Swiss benefactors’ political and cultural programme. With the synagogue, Norbert and Paulette Cymbalista wanted to contribute towards reconciling divisions in Israel’s society, on the one hand into religious and laicist sections and on the other between different movements within Judaism. In this respect the building is a signal. The synagogue can be read as both one or two buildings. Does it, or do they, not reflect the unity and the dualism of prayer and learning, of faith and knowledge, of religion and laicism? One way or the other, after nearly four decades of mediocrity, the Cymbalista Synagogue at the University of Tel Aviv represents the first Jewish house of prayer and learning on Israeli territory, whose architecture has achieved international recognition.

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