Gwozdziec Synagogue

The Gwozdziec Synagogue was a remarkable wooden synagogue built in the Polish Lithuanian Empire in 1731. (The town of Gwozdziec is now in the present Ukraine.) According to Thomas C. Hubka, an architectural historian and expert on this structre, the Gwozdziec Synagogue is a "truly resplendent synagogue that exemplified a high point in Jewish architectural art and religious painting, a tradition that was later abandoned by Eastern-European Jewish communities in the 19th and 20th centuries." Although it was destroyed during the Nazi invasion of World War II, the building's photographic and historical records are notable for their completeness.

Gwozdziec Synagogue
Zodiac Exhibit Sept. 11- Oct. 5
Recovering History Through Art

This educational collaboration centers on the creation of a full size polychromatic iconographic replica of the interior paintings of the Gwozdziec Synagogue. The replica was created by high school students as school projects during the past two years (see the reports below. And now you may view the results in an educational exhibit at Arnheim Gallery, Boston, from Sept. 11 through Oct. 5. A reception will be held Oct. 5, 5:30 p.m.-8:00 p.m.

This is a collaborative project of Handshouse Studio, the Center for Art and Community Partnerships at MassArt, and art classes at Ipswich High School, Duxbury High School, Beacon High School, and Norwell High School.

Location: Arnheim Gallery at 621 Huntington Ave., Boston, Mass. (MassArt South Hall, set back from corner of Longwood and Huntington)

2006 Bimah Project

In June 2006 Handshouse Studio held a week-long workshop to build a full-size replica of the Gwozdziec Synagogue's bimah, the elevated platform where a rabbi reads from the Torah. The elaborate bimah is wooden and all hand carved. University of Wisconsin Professor Thomas C. Hubka, architect Nat Crosby as well as a team of volunteers were able to design the bimah from existing drawings and other sources; during the workshop, students used traditional tools to build the replica bimah.

The bimah will join other Handshouse Studio projects in an exhibition at Brandeis University in January 2007.

Read the article about the workshop in the June 13 Patriot Ledger.

Wooden Ceiling Painting Replica Project

During the fall 2004 and spring 2005, Handshouse Studio teamed up with the Massachusetts College of Art to develop interdisciplinary coursework to study and create a painted portion of this important synagogue.

Working with faculty and historic experts, students researched and painted the complex historic images of the north vaulted ceiling. Tom Hubka, Professor of Architecture at University of Wisconsin and author of Resplendent Synagogue, Architecture and Worship in an Eighteenth Century Polish Community, has been the scholar advising on this significant research project.

Referencing the existing documentation of photographs and color studies of the Gwozdziec Synagogue from 1914, students built a 1/2 scale replica of the north portion of the cupola, bringing to life the photographs and showing the broad palate of deep intense colors that saturated the prayer hall with intricate designs like those often found in an oriental carpet. They painting on scaled wooden boards and used period painting techniques of distemper (dry pigment particles bound together by a water soluble organic binder of rabbit skin glue) on traditional chalk founds gesso.

The 9' by 11.5' painting of blues, reds and yellows includes zodiac symbols, arabesques, animal images, and floral designs divided by white strips inscribed with Hebrew text.

View the complete slide show of the Project.

This painting project is part of significant ongoing research of the Polish wooden synagogues and includes the making of the 12:1 scale model of the Zabludow Synagogue in 2004. The model was also produced by students from Mass Art in Boston, Mass., through workshops with Handshouse Studio. The Gwozdziec Synagogue painting and the Zabludow Synagogue model are part of the exhibition "Wooden Synagogues: A Lost World Revisited."