USA -- My brother Sam will be speaking in NYC on Monday

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

This is a heads up for anyone in New York that my brother Sam will be speaking on the architecture of NY synagogues on Monday, March 21, at synagogue Emanu-el. The information can be founr HERE.

The New York Landmarks Conservancy is celebrating the 25th anniversary of its “Sacred Sites” program, the only statewide initiative in New York and just one of three in the country dedicated to preserving and protecting religious properties with both grants and technical assistance.

Temple Emanu-El is pleased to host the Landmarks Conservancy, which will inaugurate a series of illustrated lectures about religious architecture with Restoring Splendor: The Architecture of New York Synagogues led by Samuel D. Gruber. Sacred architecture represents some of the most ambitious collective expression of human creativity. Regardless of religious beliefs, it is easy to be captivated by glorious spiritual buildings. Churches, mosques, synagogues and temples — whether ancient or post-modern — inspire us with their universal and exalted beauty.

My latest Centropa.org column -- another take on Bielsko Biala

The Jewish architect Karol Korn, who designed some of the most important buildings in Bielsko-Biala.

In my latest column on centropa.org, I visit Bielsko-Biala, Poland and describe the Jewish sites there -- focusing, among other things, on the buildings designed by the architect Karol Korn.

Much of the town is still somewhat rundown, with sooty grime obscuring the facades of elegant buildings. But restoration work has begun on some of the architectural gems that in the latter part of the 19th century won the town the nickname "little Vienna."

A Jewish architect, Karl (or Karol) Korn, in fact, was instrumental in shaping the urban landscape we see today -- so much so that a street in town was even named in his honor.

Korn, who lived from 1852-1906, designed many of the sumptuous mansions and apartment buildings that still line the city's main boulevard, ul. 3 Maja, and near by streets. Some of them show art nouveau, or secessionist, features. His used Italian and neo-renaissance touched for his own mansion, built on ul. 3 Maja in 1883 -- it incorporates a sculptural representation of Korn's emblem above the entrance: an arrangement of the measuring tools and other instruments used by architects and builders.

Korn also designed other important buildings, such as the elegant President Hotel and the central Post Office, that are landmarks on the avenues that spread out from Bielsko's medieval core of 14th century castle and arcaded market square.

His most elaborate building, however, no longer exists. This was the opulent, Moorish-style synagogue that dominated ul. 3 Maja until the Nazis destroyed it in 1939.

It was an imposing structure with two big towers, lotus domes, decorated cupolas, arched windows and a red and orange striped façade -- old postcards, on sale at the local tourist office, demonstrate that it was one of the city's most prominent attractions.
Today, a contemporary art gallery stands on the spot -- ironically this is where the performance art festival I was attending took place. It is marked by a small memorial plaque on an outer wall.

Next door, a puppet theatre stands on the site of the one-time Jewish school, and across the street is the former Jewish Community building. I was told that the carved decoration represents the various fruits mentioned in the Torah.

Read full Article

Germany -- Forgotten Jewish Modernist Architects and Their Creations

Here's a link to a terrific web site about Jewish modernist architects in Germany and their work, linked to a publication as the Pentagram Papers 37. It's based on the work of the late Haifa-born architect and scholar Myra Warhaftig, who published extensive material about them in her book, German Jewish Architects Before and After 1933: The Lexicon.

Little is known anymore about the more than 450 Jewish architects who were active in Germany before 1933 -- in November of that year, Jews were banned from the state-run artists guild, membership in which was mandatory in order for an architect to work. The web site examines 43 of them, providing biographical information and posting pictures of some of their buildings, many of which are still standing.

Another web site devoted to these architects also arranges walking tours to some of their buildings.

Warhaftig died in March at the age of 78 - see her obituary here, and also an article in Nextbook.org.

“The Jewish architect wanted to show his achievement in the forefront, and to create a new form of building that people would accept,” she told the author of the article, David Sokol.

“Berlin was a living architecture exhibition,” Warhaftig said of the interwar period. “After Weimar, Berlin was flourishing culturally. Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and other modernists were looking for a peaceful and social world, and wished to express their ideas in architecture. I think the majority of Jewish architects chose to settle in Berlin to prove that anti-Semitism would no longer play a role in their lives.”

Jewish architects were active in the modernist movement in many countries.

In the interwar period several synagogues were designed or remodeled in the modernist style by Jewish or non-Jewish architects.

These include the synagogue currently in use in Brno, Czech Republic (designed by Otto Eisler in the 1930s - you can read my article about modernist architecture in Brno in general by clicking here), that in Zilina, Slovakia (built in 1929-1931 and designed by the Berlin architect Peter Behrens), the remodeled synagogue in the Smichov district of Prague (built in 1863, remodeled in modernist/Functionalist style in 1931 by Leopold Ehrmann), and the synagogue currently in use in Rijeka, Croatia (built in 1928 and designed by Gyozo Angyal and Pietro Fabbro).

Synagogue in Smichov district of Prague, 2008. Now the archive of the Prague Jewish Museum. Photo (c) R. E. Gruber