Synagogue architecture
Synagogue architecture often follows styles in vogue at the place and time of construction. There is no set blueprint for
Synagogues are buildings for congregational worship, and thus require a large central space (as do churches and mosques). They are generally designed with the Torah ark at one end, typically opposite the main entrance, and a bimah either in front of that, or more centrally placed. Raised galleries, usually for female worshipers, have been common. Beyond these points, there is little that dictates the design. Historically, synagogues were normally built in a version of the prevailing architectural style of their time and place. Thus, the synagogue in Kaifeng, China looked very like Chinese temples of that region and era, with its outer wall and open garden in which several buildings were arranged.
Considerations
The ark may be more or less elaborate, even a cabinet not structurally integral to the building or a portable arrangement whereby a Torah is brought into a space temporarily used for worship. There must also be a table, often on a raised platform, from which the Torah is read. The table/platform, called
A synagogue may or may not have artwork; synagogues range from simple, unadorned prayer rooms to elaborately decorated buildings in every architectural style.
The synagogue, or if it is a multi-purpose building, prayer sanctuaries within the synagogue, are typically designed to have their congregation face towards Jerusalem. Thus sanctuaries in the Western world generally have their congregation face east, while those east of Israel have their congregation face west. Congregations of sanctuaries in Israel face towards Jerusalem. But this orientation need not be exact, and occasionally synagogues face other directions for structural reasons, in which case the community may face Jerusalem when standing for prayers.
History
The styles of the earliest synagogues resembled the temples of other sects of the eastern Roman Empire. The synagogues of Morocco are embellished with the colored tilework characteristic of Moroccan architecture. The surviving medieval synagogues in Budapest, Prague and the German lands are typical Gothic structures.
For much of history, the constraints of antisemitism and the laws of host countries restricting the building of synagogues visible from the street, or forbidding their construction altogether, meant that synagogues were often built within existing buildings, or opening from interior courtyards. In both Europe and in the Muslim world, old synagogues with elaborate interior architecture can be found hidden within nondescript buildings.
Where the building of synagogues was permitted, they were built in the prevailing architectural style of the time and place. Many European cities had elaborate Renaissance synagogues, of which a few survive. In Italy, there were many synagogues in the style of the Italian Renaissance (see Leghorn; Padua; and Venice). With the coming of the Baroque era, Baroque synagogues appeared across Europe.
The
Central Europe: Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
The great exceptions to the rule that synagogues are built in the prevailing style of their time and place are the Wooden synagogues in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and two forms of masonry synagogues: synagogues with bimah-support and nine-field synagogues (the latter not totally confined to synagogues).
Wooden synagogues
The wooden synagogues were a unique Jewish artistic and architectural form.[2]> Characteristic features include the independence of the pitched roof from the design of the interior domed ceiling. They had elaborately carved, painted, domed, balconied and vaulted interiors. The architectural interest of the exterior lay in the large scale of the buildings, the multiple, horizontal lines of the tiered roofs, and the carved corbels that supported them. Wooden synagogues featured a single, large hall. In contrast to contemporary churches, there was no apse. Moreover, while contemporary churches featured imposing vestibules, the entry porches of the wooden synagogues was a low annex, usually with a simple lean-to roof. In these synagogues, the emphasis was on constructing a single, large, high-domed worship space.[3][page needed][2][4][5]
According to art historian Stephen S. Kayser, the wooden synagogues of Poland with their painted and carved interiors were "a truly original and organic manifestation of artistic expression—the only real Jewish folk art in history."[6]
According to Louis Lozowick, writing in 1947, the wooden synagogues were unique because, unlike all previous synagogues, they were not built in the architectural style of their region and era, but in a newly evolved and uniquely Jewish style, making them "a truly original folk expression," whose "originality does not lie alone in the exterior architecture, it lies equally in the beautiful and intricate wood carving of the interior."[7]
Moreover, while in many parts of the world Jews were proscribed from entering the building trades and even from practicing the decorative arts of painting and woodcarving, the wooden synagogues were actually built by Jewish craftsmen.[7]
Art historian Ori Z. Soltes points out that the wooden synagogues, unusual for that period in being large, identifiably Jewish buildings not hidden in courtyards or behind walls, were built not only during a Jewish "intellectual golden age" but in a time and place where "the local Jewish population was equal to or even greater than the Christian population.[8]
Synagogues with bimah-support
In the second half of the 16th century masonry synagogues whose interiors present an original structural solution, found in no other kind of building, were constructed in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. These were synagogue halls whose bimah was surrounded by four pillars. Placed upon a podium, connected above by
One of the first synagogues with a bimah-support was the Old Synagogue (Przemyśl), which was destroyed during World War II. Synagogues with a bimah-tower were built up to the 19th century and the concept was adopted in various Central European countries.[10]
Nine-field synagogues
Around the beginning of the 1630s the first synagogues with nine-field vaulting were constructed. This design has a set of four large columns or piers placed squarely in a rectangular central space, supporting three rows of three vaults on the ceiling. They allowed for much greater halls than hitherto and were also called nine-bay synagogues. The Great Suburb Synagogue in Lviv and the synagogue in Ostroh were erected virtually at the same time (1625 and 1627). In these halls the vaulting rested on four tall pillars and on corresponding wall pilasters. The columns and the pilasters were situated in equal spacing and dividing the roof-area into nine equal fields. In these synagogues the bimah was a free-standing podium or a bower situated within the central field between the pillars.[11]
Egyptian Revival
Moorish influence
In medieval
Another significant Mudéjar synagogue is the one at
After the expulsion from Spain there was a general feeling among wealthy
Moorish style, when adapted by the Ashkenazi was believed to have been a reference to the Golden Age of Spanish Jewry,[15] it was not the primary intention of the Jews and architects who chose to build in the Moorish style.[16] Rather, the choice to use the Moorish style was reflective of pride in their Semitic or oriental heritage.[16] This pride in their heritage and understanding of Jews as "semitic" or "oriental" led architects like Gottfried Semper (Semper Synagogue Dresden, Germany) and Ludwig Förster (Tempelgasse or Leopoldstädter Tempel, Vienna, Austria and Dohány Street Synagogue, Budapest, Hungary) to build their synagogues in the Moorish style.[17] Moorish Style remained a popular choice for synagogues throughout the rest of the 19th and early 20th century.
Modern synagogue architecture
In the modern period, synagogues have continued to be built in every popular architectural style, including Art Nouveau, Art Deco, International style, and all contemporary styles. In the post-World War II period "a period of post-war modernism," came to the fore, "characterized by assertive architectural gestures that had the strength and integrity to stand alone, without applied artwork or Jewish iconography."[18] A notable work of Art Nouveau, pre–World War I Hungarian synagogue architecture is Budapest's Kazinczy Street Synagogue.[19] In the UK, synagogues built in the early 1960s, such as a
The interior
The most common general plan for the interior of the synagogue is an
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Ark of the 14th centurySephardic Synagogue of El Tránsito in Toledo, Spain
The Ark
The
Other interior arrangements
The modern synagogue, besides containing the minister's study, trustees' rooms, choir-rooms, and organ-loft devote much space to school purposes; generally, the entire lower floor is used for classrooms. The interior treatment of the synagogue allows great latitude in design.
For the thirty-three synagogues of India, American architect and professor of architecture Jay A. Waronker has learned that these buildings tend to follow the Sephardic traditions of the tevah (or bimah, the raised platform where the service is led and Torah read) being freestanding and roughly in the middle of the sanctuary and the ark (called the hekhal by Sephardim and the aron ha-kodesh by Ashkenazim) engaged along the wall that is closest to Jerusalem. The hekhals are essentially cabinets or armoires storing the sefer Torahs. Seating, in the form of long wooden benches, is grouped around and facing the tevah. Men sit together on the main level of the sanctuary while women sit in a dedicated zone on the same level in the smaller synagogues or upstairs in a women's gallery.
Interesting architectural and planning exceptions to this common Sephardic formula are the Cochin synagogues in Kerala of far southwestern India. Here, on the gallery level and adjacent to the space provided for women and overlooking the sanctuary below, is a second tevah. This tevah was used for holidays and unique occasions. It is therefore interesting that on more special events, the women are closest to the point where the religious service is being led.
In Baghdadi synagogues of India, the hekhals appear to be standard-sized cabinets from the outside (the side facing the sanctuary), but when opened a very large space is revealed. They are essentially walk-in rooms with a perimeter shelf holding up to one hundred sefer Torahs.
Interior decoration
There are but few emblems that may be used that are characteristically Jewish; the Star of David, the lion of Judah, and flower and fruit forms alone are generally allowable in
, may be utilized in the design. Hebrew inscriptions are sparingly or seldom-used; stained-glass windows, at one time considered the special property of the Church, are now employed but figured subjects are not used.Gallery
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4th century synagogue in Capernaum, Israel
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The Central Synagogue of Aleppo. The oldest surviving inscription at the site dates to 834 CE.
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The oldest parts of the Old Synagogue in Erfurt, Germany date to the late 11th century
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The 15th centuryOld Synagoguein Kraków, Poland
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The 17th centuryHusiatyn Synagogue in Husiatyn, Ukraine
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The Touro Synagogue (1759) in Newport, Rhode Island is the oldest synagogue in the United States
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The 1869 Rumbach Street Synagogue in Budapest, Hungary
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1869 Great Synagogue in Romantic style in Pécs, Hungary
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1902 Sarajevo Synagogue in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
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Sinagoga Or Torah (1927) of Buenos Aires, Argentina
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Cymbalista Synagogue (1997) by Mario Botta in Tel Aviv, Israel
See also
- Jewish architecture
- List of Jewish architects
- Oldest synagogues in the world
References
- ^ "770's around the world - Photos: Andrea Robbins and Max Becher". www.shmais.com. Archived from the original on 3 March 2007.
- ^ OCLC 1022726182.
- OCLC 1022726182.
- OCLC 1465235.
- OCLC 11470019.
- ^ Piechotka, Maria; Piechotka, Kazimierz (1 July 1960). "Wooden Synagogues". Commentary Magazine.
- ^ OCLC 1008453832.
- OCLC 1022724571.
- ISBN 978-83-930937-7-9
- ^ https://publikationsserver.tu-braunschweig.de/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/dbbs_derivate_00009149/Doktorarbeit.pdf Bimah-support. Retrieved July 29, 2019.
- ISBN 978-83-930937-7-9
- ^ Rachel Wischnitzer, Architecture of the European Synagogue, Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1964
- ^ Carole Krinsky, Synagogues of Europe; Architecture, History, Meaning, MIT Press, 1985; new edition 1996
- ^ Diana Muir Appelbaum, "Jewish Identity and Egyptian Revival Architecture", Journal of Jewish Identities, July 2012.
- ^ Kalmar, I. D. (2001). "Moorish style: Orientalism, the Jews, and synagogue architecture". Jewish Social Studies, 7(3), 68–100. 69.
- ^ a b Davidson, Moorish Style. p. 70
- ^ Davidson, Moorish Style. p. 84
- ^ Henry and Daniel Stoltzman, Synagogue Architecture in America; Path, Spirit, and Identity, Images Publishing, 2004, p. 193
- ^ "Synagogues". Jewish heritage Walking tours in Budapest.
- ^ a b "Jewish Synagogue at Carmel College" Historic England List Entry, retrieved November 4, 2018
- ISBN 9780140710458.
Further reading
- de Breffny, Brian, The Synagogue, Macmillan, 1st American ed., 1978, ISBN 0-02-530310-4.
- Goldman, Bernard, The Sacred Portal: a primary symbol in ancient Judaic art, Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1966
- Carol Herselle Krinsky, Synagogues of Europe; Architecture, History, Meaning, MIT Press, 1985; revised edition, MIT Press, 1986; Dover reprint, 1996
- Stolzman, Henry & Daniel Stolzman (2004). ISBN 1864700742.
- Rachel Wischnitzer, Synagogue Architecture in the United States, Jewish Publication Society of America, 1955
- Rachel Wischnitzer, Architecture of the European Synagogue, Jewish Publication Society, 1964
External links
- Synagogue Architecture, Jewish Encyclopedia
- Early Synagogue Architecture, My Jewish Learning
- American Synagogue Architecture
- Slideshow of Contemporary American Synagogue Sanctuary Architectural Elements