DOCSLIB.ORG

WINDOWS of CELEBRATIONS in the New Synagogue of Szeged

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
WINDOWS of CELEBRATIONS in the New Synagogue of Szeged WINDOWS OF CELEBRATIONS in the New Synagogue of Szeged REDISCOVER WINDOWS OF CELEBRATIONS in the New Synagogue of Szeged Szeged, 2020 editor Krisztina Frauhammer Anna Szentgyörgyi FOREWORD concept & translation Anna Szentgyörgyi ewish cultural heritage is a unique and valuable component of European culture, which often remains hidden in nu- Jmerous cities once home to flourishing Jewish communities before WWII. In the pre-WWII era, Europe was home to a design Jewish population around 9 M, at least a third of them living in present day’s Danube Region. Jewish diaspora communities Innovariant Nyomdaipari Kft. introduced rich cultural identity, deeply rooted traditions and remarkable community heritage, all adding great value to the hosting cities and their already existing local communities. The tragic turmoil of the mid-20th century, followed by the photography of the synagogue and its windows emigration of the surviving population in large numbers, depleted many of these communities; however, their imprints János Rómer and heritage are still there to be found. Project REDISCOVER: expose and exploit the concealed Jewish heritage of the Danube Region aims at capitalizing on this photography of archival documents legacy by creating value in social cohesion, tourism potential and cultural abundance. The main objective is to build on Anna Szentgyörgyi currently undiscovered potential in the Jewish cultural heritage of cities, having unexplored, nevertheless rich tangible and intangible heritage elements, and develop contemporary tourism solutions, while smartly arranging visibility, accessibility ISBN 978-963-89222-5-0 and sustainability. A key element of this approach is intangible heritage considered as a valid factor to create awareness and interest within the tourism sector. By enlarging the current cultural offer and making the so far hidden heritage more Publisher visible, accessible and more attractive, Szeged and the whole region will be better positioned to strengthen its cultural Municipality of Szeged economy. REDISCOVER project Following these aims, we deliver this book to the Dear Reader in which the history of making the exceptional stained DTP2-084-2.2 glass windows of the famous synagogue in Szeged is described; furthermore, the importance and the rich symbolism of the building is uncovered and the significance of its builder is highlighted. The Lead Partner of the project, Municipality of Szeged, wishes to acknowledge the contribution of the Jewish Community of Szeged to successfully accomplish the main objectives of the project, safeguarding tangible and intangible Jewish cultural heritage for the upcoming generations. Furthermore, Lead Partner wishes to express gratitude to Tibor Fényi, director of REDISCOVER Miksa Róth Memorial House, Budapest, to restorators Károly Payer and Károly Sós, to researchers Viktória Bányai and Balázs Fényes for their help to compile this book. Project co-funded by the European Union funds (ERDF, IPA) and Hungarian national funds THE NEW Major construction works of the synagogue in Szeged the act and then he SYNAGOGUE OF started in August 1900, and were finished by October 1902; handed over the how ever, inner works were still being carried out in 1903, gift of the Jewish SZEGED thus, the ceremonial opening took place on the 19th of May community, a 1903. golden ring with the picture of the The whole procedure of construction was supervised by temple embossed, the famous architect Lipót Baumhorn himself. to its builder.6 he synagogue of Szeged, considered as the masterpiece Although the second The most influential Jewish weekly paper Egyenlőség The community Tof the famous Jewish architect Lipót Baumhorn1, is the synagogue had seats (Equality) published a 7-page-long report on the opening said farewell to second largest one in Hungary and the fourth largest syna- for 440 men and 300 ceremony. ”The dedication of the new Jewish temple was its old synagogue gogue in the world. women, numerous a major celebration.” Not only the outstanding work of after the general complaints about the its era and its creators were celebrated, but the perfect assembly. Torah It’s construction started five years after Jewish religion was lack of space reached and complete harmony in which all classes and religious scrolls were taken granted equal rights with the historic Christian Churches out to the leadership congregations of the society of Szeged united.”4 The out of the ark of by law in 1895. “The synagogue is 48 m high and equally of the community in celebration started with placing the keystone.5 This event the old temple long, reflecting the elevated social status that the Jewish the second half of the was followed by the representative general assembly where and were carried Community of Szeged had achieved by the end of the 1850s.3 the portrait of the president of the Jewish community was over to the new century, being a substantial operator of local society and unveiled. Dr. Izsó Rósa von Várhely was deeply moved by building by people economy. The number of its members rose ten times in the As a result, decision singing in a festive | 4 period of 1850 – 1910.”2 was made to build a march. The famous cantor Mór Schorr conducted the choir more monumental Jewish people were allowed to settle in Szeged by the local and the musical programme. Three young women, dressed and impressive syn- council in 1786. The first synagogue of the growing commu- in white, carried the key to the new building on a velvet agogue by the local nity, seating 129 men and 99 women, had been built on the pillow. Architect Lipót Baumhorn received the silver key Jewish community in plot of the New Synagogue between 1800 and 1803. How- | 2 in front of the temple and handed it over to Dr. Izsó Rósa the early 1890s. ever, the building soon proved to be too small and the com- von Várhely, president of the Jewish community, who munity decided to build another, more spacious synagogue A design contest was advertised in 1897, ten contestants opened the gates of the new synagogue while giving a short that is the applied by the deadline. The first prize was awarded ceremonial speech. After that, the marching people entered so-called Old to Jewish architect Lipót Baumhorn, who designed the building while horns were played, and were received by Synagogue. It or redesigned over 40 synagogues in the territory of the large crowd occupying the benches inside. was designed the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. The design contest in neoclassic was attended by Marcell Komor and Dezső Jakab, two style by Hen- outstanding representatives of Hungarian Art Nouveau. rik and József Their plan (with further two designs), reflecting genuine Lipovszky and Hungarian Art Nouveau style, was bought by the Church was built be- Building Committee. Their concept finally materialized in tween 1840 Subotica, where the synagogue of the Jewish community | 1 and 1843. stands on the square named after the two architects. | 3 GLASS ART IN ARCHITECTURE According to contemporary sources, significant represen- th tatives of the city and the region were at present as well AT THE TURN OF THE 19 as Jewish leaders from Pest. Manó Róth stained glass artist th also attended the opening ceremony where prayer was held AND 20 CENTURIES by Mór Löwy, Rabbi of Timisoara, accompanied by 14 other Rabbis. Immánuel Löw, the most influential Rabbi of the city, held the speeches of the celebration. Immánuel Löw described the building as follows in 1903: “It is a fine example of modern synagogue architecture in he art style Historicism was created by the romantic Hungarian state played a serious role. Noticing the special every detail as well as holistically.”7 Baumhorn’s exceptional Tnostalgia felt towards previous historic periods in demand of public and residential buildings Ágoston Tre- th th Eclectic style building became an outstanding structure of Hungary at the turn of the 19 and 20 centuries. Another fort (1817–1888), minister of religion and public educa- determining style of this era was Art Nouveau in Hungary, tion, founded the Institution of National Glass Painting the city and the era. The iron-structured church followed 13 the Eclectic style of the late 19th century, resembling Moorish an art style also seeking its roots in the past. Artists of both in 1878. Due to this act, glass paintings became appreci- influence.8 styles, with exceptional enthusiasm and energy, intended ated, establishing a valuable religious glass painting art in to rediscover old beauties, thus making their surround- the first decades of the 1900s. Owing to this, besides glass Decorative design elements of Art Nouveau style can be ings more aesthetic. This pursuit revived glass painting at manufactories, glass painters and glass artists experienced found on the cupola and the windows, furthermore, the turn of the century, highlighting the secret of radiant prosperity in production. Glass painting workshops started Roman, Gothic and Renaissance style elements appear in the glass.10 Decorative painting, architectural sculpture, art to spring; numerous public-, residential- and church build- synagogue9. The most imposing part of the building is the locksmithery, architectural ceramics and glasswork were ings were decorated with stained glass windows. Represen- cupola, being one of the most typical element of synagogue the branches of applied art which, reinforcing each oth- tatives of the profession formed the National Association architecture of its time. It is richly decorated with colourful er, accomplished
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Synagogue in Corsicana, Texas
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by SFA ScholarWorks East Texas Historical Journal Volume 28 | Issue 2 Article 6 10-1990 The yS nagogue in Corsicana, Texas Jane Manaster Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/ethj Part of the United States History Commons Tell us how this article helped you. Recommended Citation Manaster, Jane (1990) "The yS nagogue in Corsicana, Texas," East Texas Historical Journal: Vol. 28: Iss. 2, Article 6. Available at: http://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/ethj/vol28/iss2/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by SFA ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in East Texas Historical Journal by an authorized administrator of SFA ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 16 EAST TEXAS HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION THE SYNAGOGUE IN CORSICANA, TEXAS by Jane Manasta The cultural landscape of Texas continually yields examples of architectural form elements derived directly from Europe. Distinctive Ger­ man, Polish, Alsatian, Russian, and Irish vernacular structures have been documented, reflecting the diverse human settlement of the state. l Added to the well-known introduction of folk styles from the Southern United States and Mexico, these exotic buildings help lend regional character to different parts of Texas. Previous research has focused largely upon dwellings, and the potential contributions of many ethnic groups have not been examined. Attention in the present study is turned toward vernacular ecclesiastical architecture and to the small-town Jewish population of East Texas. Folk architecture has been identified in churches standing in those rural towns, especially in the central part of the state, that look like nineteenth-century time warps overlaid with a modern American veneer of pick-up trucks, franchised fast-food stops, and gas stations.
    [Show full text]
  • Jewish Cemetries, Synagogues, and Mass Grave Sites in Ukraine
    Syracuse University SURFACE Religion College of Arts and Sciences 2005 Jewish Cemetries, Synagogues, and Mass Grave Sites in Ukraine Samuel D. Gruber United States Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad Follow this and additional works at: https://surface.syr.edu/rel Part of the Religion Commons Recommended Citation Gruber, Samuel D., "Jewish Cemeteries, Synagogues, and Mass Grave Sites in Ukraine" (2005). Full list of publications from School of Architecture. Paper 94. http://surface.syr.edu/arc/94 This Report is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Arts and Sciences at SURFACE. It has been accepted for inclusion in Religion by an authorized administrator of SURFACE. For more information, please contact [email protected]. JEWISH CEMETERIES, SYNAGOGUES, AND MASS GRAVE SITES IN UKRAINE United States Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad 2005 UNITED STATES COMMISSION FOR THE PRESERVATION OF AMERICA’S HERITAGE ABROAD Warren L. Miller, Chairman McLean, VA Members: Ned Bandler August B. Pust Bridgewater, CT Euclid, OH Chaskel Besser Menno Ratzker New York, NY Monsey, NY Amy S. Epstein Harriet Rotter Pinellas Park, FL Bingham Farms, MI Edgar Gluck Lee Seeman Brooklyn, NY Great Neck, NY Phyllis Kaminsky Steven E. Some Potomac, MD Princeton, NJ Zvi Kestenbaum Irving Stolberg Brooklyn, NY New Haven, CT Daniel Lapin Ari Storch Mercer Island, WA Potomac, MD Gary J. Lavine Staff: Fayetteville, NY Jeffrey L. Farrow Michael B. Levy Executive Director Washington, DC Samuel Gruber Rachmiel
    [Show full text]
  • Hungarian Jews and Their Synagogues in the 19Th Century
    Prof. Rudolf Klein, Tel Aviv University FIN MINKÁCS TO ‘JUDAPEST’ JEWS AND THEIR SYNAGOGUES IN 19TH CENTURY HUNGARY L E C T U R E Central European University BUDAPEST December 2005 MAIN TOPICS 1. Architecture and the Jewish heritage — the split between ideas and form: the impossibility of creating a ‘Jewish style;’ 2.The hybrid nature of Synagogue architecture: space in the Jewish tradition and language borrowed from the gentile buildings; 3.Synagogues and churches: stylistic periods, architectural language and space conception of synagogues; 4.Compositional typology of 19th century synagogues; 5.Synagogues in their architectural-urban context; 6.The significance of 19th century synagogues for architectural history. 1. ARCHITECTURE AND THE JEWISH HERITAGE MANIFESTATION OF THE DIVINE IN VISIBLE MATERIAL ‘…if the world preoccupies us, that is because it is insufficiently de-sacralised’. Emmanuel Lèvinas In some Christian Although in Judaism there denominations the is no total image ban, the divine is allowed to divine is not allowed to show up in pieces of art. DIVINE manifest in visible with its double צלם material – a DIVINE The precondition for visual meaning – picture and idol arts. If Christ is God’s – underlines the caution incarnation, further towards visual incarnations are representation. To convey possible in a piece of the notion of matter as non- art - an icon – is the sentient, non-responsive to bearer of the sacred. human desire and undifferentiated, Biblical Arts are backed by the heritage uses the Hebrew links between modus This has ‘sand’ as חול essendi and modus term operandi. Architecture, its literal meaning, thereby as a relatively abstract conveying the notion of THE VISUAL; art also enjoys the THE VISUAL; neutral expanse, in the TANGIBLE status of other visual TANGIBLE sense of denying any MATERIAL arts: the church is MATERIAL distinction to any part of God’s house, its matter.
    [Show full text]
  • Jewish Identities in Synagogue Architecture of Galicia and Bukovina
    Published in Ars Judaica: The Bar-Ilan Journal of Jewish Art, 6 (2010), 81–100 and reprinted at The Routes to Roots Foundation (www.rtrfoundation.org) with permission from the publisher, Ars Judaica: The Bar-Ilan Journal of Jewish Art Jewish Identities in Synagogue Architecture of Galicia and Bukovina Sergey R. Kravtsov The present article discusses how Jewish identities were loyal Habsburg subjects of the Mosaic faith. Many Jews constructed through the synagogue architecture of the played active roles in promoting this move, inspired by easternmost provinces of the Habsburg Empire – Eastern the Enlightenment, as it contributed in their eyes to Galicia (hereafter Galicia) and Bukovina – until World the modernization of Jewish society. However, other – War I. quite numerous – groups of Jews preferred to hold fast to Defining the inferior status of Jewish communities by their traditional beliefs and practices. This split led to means of architecture was an objective of the dominant construction of Progressive, traditionalist, and even more society in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth until its specific identities in Jewish sacred architecture in Galicia partition in 1772. In the urban space, Catholic supremacy and Bukovina. was emphasized by the dominant location, height, and The array of Jewish groups included the adherents of refinement of churches and monasteries. The clergy and the Enlightenment, or maskilim (literally, “educated”), the burghers tried to prevent construction of synagogues in Hasidim, and the mitnagdim, traditionalist opponents of the town centers and on streets on which Christian the Hasidim. The enlightened Jews welcomed Austrian- churches were located and where they held their German culture in the first half of the nineteenth century, processions; they also limited synagogue height and and gradually shifted towards a Jewish-Polish identity tried to ensure that synagogues’ exterior design was in a later period, especially after 1873, when the Polish unpretentious.1 autonomy of Galicia was established.
    [Show full text]
  • Jewish Dimensions in Modern Visual Culture: Antisemitism, Assimilation, Affirmation
    Fairfield University DigitalCommons@Fairfield History Faculty Book Gallery History Department 2009 Jewish Dimensions in Modern Visual Culture: Antisemitism, Assimilation, Affirmation Rose-Carol Washton Long Matthew Baigell Milly Heyd Gavriel D. Rosenfeld Fairfield University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.fairfield.edu/history-books Copyright 2009 Brandeis University Press Content archived her with permission from the copyright holder. Recommended Citation Washton Long, Rose-Carol; Baigell, Matthew; Heyd, Milly; and Rosenfeld, Gavriel D., "Jewish Dimensions in Modern Visual Culture: Antisemitism, Assimilation, Affirmation" (2009). History Faculty Book Gallery. 14. https://digitalcommons.fairfield.edu/history-books/14 This item has been accepted for inclusion in DigitalCommons@Fairfield by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Fairfield. It is brought to you by DigitalCommons@Fairfield with permission from the rights- holder(s) and is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses, you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/or on the work itself. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 12 Gavriel D. Rosenfeld Postwar Jewish Architecture and the Memory of the Holocaust When Daniel Libeskind was named in early 2003 as the mas- ter planner in charge of redeveloping the former World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan, most observers saw it as a personal triumph that tes- tifi ed to his newfound status as one of the world’s most respected architects.
    [Show full text]
  • Moorish Style: Orientalism, the Jews, and Synagogue Architecture Author(S): Ivan Davidson Kalmar Source: Jewish Social Studies, New Series, Vol
    Moorish Style: Orientalism, the Jews, and Synagogue Architecture Author(s): Ivan Davidson Kalmar Source: Jewish Social Studies, New Series, Vol. 7, No. 3 (Spring - Summer, 2001), pp. 68-100 Published by: Indiana University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4467611 Accessed: 08/11/2010 14:19 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=iupress. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Indiana University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Jewish Social Studies. http://www.jstor.org Moorish Style: Orientalism, theJews, and Synagogue Architecture Ivan Davidson Kalmar he Jerusalem Street synagogue is located in uptown Prague, away from the hustle and bustle of the touristyJewish Town.
    [Show full text]
  • Modern Synagogue Architecture
    Chapter 17 Modern Synagogue Architecture Samuel D. Gruber Synagogue architecture during the twentieth century reflected the great trans- formations of Judaism that were taking place, as Jews of all religious streams modernized and adopted ambient monumental architectural approaches to their houses of worship. During the early 20th century and even in the inter- war period, there were many art and architectural styles that were widely con- sidered “modern” though we do not see them as part of the modernist canon today. In the decades prior to the Holocaust, the choice of architectural style often played a role in furthering religious, political and community agendas, in- cluding Orthodoxy, Progressive Judaism (called in North America Reform and Conservative Judaism), Zionism, and nationalism. In the post-Second World War period, modernism per se was taken on as Jewish vernacular architecture. 1 Pre-World War II In Europe after World War i, traditional (Orthodox) congregations quickly adopted simple functional modernism and rejected ideas of representations of Jewish exoticism as presented in Moorish, Byzantine and other “Orien- tal” styles, while in America, historicist architecture remained popular for all branches of Judaism through the 1920s.1 Some (often smaller) Reform and Pro- gressive congregations in Europe shifted from a preference for imitating na- tional styles of their home countries to more innovative designs linking them to culturally and politically progressive movements. Zionism was reflected in synagogue architecture in different ways. In the late 19th century and continuing well into the 20th architects attempted to link synagogue design to the architecture of the biblical Temple, which could be interpreted in many ways.2 By the 1920s, European synagogue architects were 1 The best overview of European synagogue architecture for all periods remains Krinsky, Synagogues of Europe, 331.
    [Show full text]
  • Zeitschrift Fur Geschichte Der Baukunst Journal of the History of Architecture Sonderdruck Architectura R/Zooj
    Zeitschrift fur Geschichte der Baukunst Journal of the History of Architecture Sonderdruck architectura r/zooj Deutscher Kunstverlag Miinchen Berlin Sergey R. Kravtsov Gothic Survival in Synagogue Architecture of Ruthenia, Podolia and Volhynia in the 17th- 18th Centuries The Ruthenian, Podolian and Volhynian provinces sance aesthetic theory, and a preference for *native*, were the easternmost areas reached by the Gothic style not imported forms.' Alternatively, the expansive in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and in the penetration of Gothic took place in those eastern re- whole of Europe. The geographical position of these gions where it was little known before, like Masovia, regions - today part of Ukraine,' but formerly part Lithuania, and Moldavia, where it was applied to of the Old Russia with its Orthodox Church and Orthodox sacred buildings for the first time.5 In fact, dependence on Byzantine culture - was the reason for there were no distinct borders to the Gothic expansion the comparatively late penetration of Gothic architec- of the 16~~century, as Orthodox communities were ture. It was imported during the I~&- centuries by several waves of Roman Catholic colonists, i.e. towns- men and gentry from Poland and Germany, as well as ' The geographical names of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth are given in Polish, with an exception of by the monastic orders. Though Gothic architecture Lvov (L'viv, Lw6w, Lemberg). in these regions still deserves better exploration, it can l Tomasz Wcdawowicz, Maiopolska i ziemie Ruskie Koro- be assumed that it was rather conservative, detached ny, in: Architektura gotycka w Polsce, ed. Teresa Mroczko and Marian Arszyliski, vol.
    [Show full text]
  • Synagogues and Jewish Architectural Identity in 1870S Britain
    Fenster, L. Exilic Landscapes: Synagogues and Jewish Architectural Identity in 1870s Britain. ARENA Journal of Architectural Research. 2018; 3(1): 1. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/ajar.47 HUMANITIES ESSAY Exilic Landscapes: Synagogues and Jewish Architectural Identity in 1870s Britain Leon Fenster* When Jews in Florence, Italy submitted plans for a new Great Synagogue in 1872, the designs were rejected not on the usual religious or political grounds, but for stylistic reasons. The local municipality had decided that the Jewish community was not building in a ‘Jewish enough’ style, although it was not at all clear what this style ought to be. This debate over how Jews ought to build raged across Europe throughout that decade, and beyond. This essay revisits that particular historical problem, by looking at a sample of five new synagogues that were erected in England during the 1870s and 1880s: St John’s Wood Synagogue (1880–82) in London; Bradford Synagogue (1880–81) in Yorkshire; West London Synagogue (1867–70); Princes Road Synagogue in Liverpool (1872–74); and New West End Synagogue in London (1877–79). Each offered its own different way to think about the appropriate design style for a contemporary Jewish place of worship, and how this coincided, or not, with the rituals of worship and with the requirements of the various congregations involved. The essay concludes by asking what relevance such debates might have today. Keywords: Architecture; Synagogues; Jewish; Style; Eclecticism Introduction When Jews in Florence, Italy submitted plans for a new Great Synagogue in 1872, the designs were rejected not on the usual religious or political grounds, but for stylistic reasons.
    [Show full text]
  • Jewish Identities in Synagogue Architecture of Galicia and Bukovina
    Jewish Identities in Synagogue Architecture of Galicia and Bukovina Sergey R. Kravtsov The present article discusses how Jewish identities were loyal Habsburg subjects of the Mosaic faith. Many Jews constructed through the synagogue architecture of the played active roles in promoting this move, inspired by easternmost provinces of the Habsburg Empire – Eastern the Enlightenment, as it contributed in their eyes to Galicia (hereafter Galicia) and Bukovina – until the the modernization of Jewish society. However, other – World War I. quite numerous – groups of Jews preferred to hold fast to Defining the inferior status of Jewish communities by their traditional beliefs and practices. This split led to means of architecture was an objective of the dominant construction of Progressive, traditionalist, and even more society in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth until its specific identities in Jewish sacred architecture in Galicia partition in 1772. In the urban space, Catholic supremacy and Bukovina. was emphasized by the dominant location, height, and The array of Jewish groups included the adherents of refinement of churches and monasteries. The clergy and the Enlightenment, or maskilim (literally, “educated”), the burghers tried to prevent construction of synagogues in Hasidim, and the mitnagdim, traditionalist opponents of the town centers and on streets on which Christian the Hasidim. The enlightened Jews welcomed Austrian- churches were located and where they held their German culture in the first half of the nineteenth century, processions; they also limited synagogue height and and gradually shifted towards a Jewish-Polish identity tried to ensure that synagogues’ exterior design was in a later period, especially after 1873, when the Polish unpretentious.1 autonomy of Galicia was established.
    [Show full text]
  • The Walls of the Confessions: Neo-Romanesque Architecture, Nationalism, and Religious Identity in the Kaiserreich by Annah Krieg
    The Walls of the Confessions: Neo-Romanesque Architecture, Nationalism, and Religious Identity in the Kaiserreich by Annah Krieg B.A., Lawrence University, 2001 M.A., University of Pittsburgh, 2004 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The School of Art and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2010 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Annah Krieg It was defended on April 2, 2010 and approved by Christopher Drew Armstrong, Director of Architectural Studies and Assistant Professor, History of Art and Architecture Paul Jaskot, Professor, Art History , DePaul University Kirk Savage, Professor and Chair, History of Art and Architecture Terry Smith, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Contemporary Art History and Theory, History of Art and Architecture Dissertation Advisor: Barbara McCloskey, Associate Professor, History of Art and Architecture ii The Walls of the Confessions: Neo-Romanesque Architecture, Nationalism, and Religious Identity in the Kaiserreich Annah Krieg, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2010 Scholars traditionally understand neo-Romanesque architecture as a stylistic manifestation of the homogenizing and nationalizing impulse of the Kaiserreich. Images of fortress-like office buildings and public halls with imposing facades of rusticated stone dominate our view of neo-Romanesque architecture from the Kaiserreich (1871-1918). The three religious buildings at the core of this study - Edwin Oppler’s New Synagogue in Breslau (1866-1872), Christoph Hehl’s Catholic Rosary Church in Berlin-Steglitz (1899-1900), and Friedrich Adler’s Protestant Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem (1893-1898) – offer compelling counter- examples of the ways in which religious groups, especially those that were local minorities, adapted the dominant neo-Romanesque style to their own particular quest towards distinctive assimilation in an increasingly complex, national, modern society.
    [Show full text]
  • Buildings Fraught with Meaning: an Introduction to a Special Issue on Synagogue Architecture in Context
    Jewish History (2011) 25: 1–11 © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010 DOI: 10.1007/s10835-010-9125-8 Buildings Fraught with Meaning: An Introduction to a Special Issue on Synagogue Architecture in Context LEE SHAI WEISSBACH University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, USA E-mail: [email protected] It has frequently been observed that synagogue buildings have long fulfilled three related but somewhat different functions, as reflected in the three He- brew terms used to designate these buildings. The synagogue customarily has been called a beit knesset, a house of assembly; a beit tefilah, a house of prayer; and also a beit midrash, a house of study.1 However, there is yet another function of a synagogue building at least as significant as the three usually enumerated, for a synagogue is also a mivneh simli, a symbolic struc- ture fraught with meaning. That is, a synagogue building often acts as a con- crete representation of the character and condition of the Jewish community it serves. It can and often does reveal not only who the Jews who make use of it are and how they behave, but also what they think and what they believe. As one synagogue architect put it recently, “architecture speaks. It expresses what we value from the past, what our needs are now, and, at its best mo- ments, looks to the future.”2 As much as synagogue buildings provide venues for worship, study, and assembly, they also reflect the circumstances and the mentalité of those who build and use them. The symbolic power of synagogue buildings has long been recognized in Jewish tradition.
    [Show full text]