New Synagogue, Mainz

About

Few Jewish communities can surpass the one of Mainz in importance and tradition. During the Middle Ages the city was a major center of religious instruction, and this can be traced back to a series of influential rabbis, especially Gershom ben Judah, whose teachings and legal decisions had an impact on Judaism at large. His wisdom was deemed so great that he was given the name ‘Light of Diaspora.’ The new synagogue of Mainz builds on this tradition. Even though the building site is the location of a previous synagogue, destroyed during the Nazi era, it was my intention that the new synagogue not reference the Holocaust. Fragments of the old synagogue had been placed there in the 1980s by a previous generation. I kept them there out of respect for that decision, but it would not have been my decision. For a number of reasons, it was my very intention that the destruction of the old synagogue not be the foundation of my new synagogue. First of all, there were several synagogues of Mainz before that war, across the city. Secondly, I did not want to make the Nazi destruction a ‘co-author’ of the new design. And last but not least, the city of Mainz has literally shaped the Jewish religion we know today. This positive force had to be celebrated in my design. The Mainz chapter of the Holocaust needs to be commemorated somewhere else. The site for the synagogue is located in a late 19th-century residential neighborhood, characterized by its perimeter block pattern. We chose to use this urban figure for the overall layout of the synagogue. The volume of the building is situated parallel to the streets and its facades are in line with the existing neighboring buildings, thus creating a contained street space. The use of the perimeter block typology for a sacral building is highly unusual, as one would usually expect a religious building to sit like a solitary volume, withdrawn from the street.

Sources

• Arquitectura Viva