Making History: Wooden Synagogue Replication Project

Re-Building a 17th century Wooden Synagogue with the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, 2011-2012

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The Museum of the History of Polish Jews, in collaboration with Handshouse Studio, plans to rebuild components of an exquisite 17th-century wooden synagogue. This historic structure will be set within the stunning architectural space of the Museum's modern building. The Museum is under construction on the site of the former Warsaw Ghetto facing the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising monument (see photo below).

Museum website: www.jewishmuseum.org.pl/en/cms/into-the-country/.

Architectural rendering of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Warsaw, Poland

None of these extraordinary wooden synagogues survive. The Nazis burned the last of them to the ground in 1939. But, we do have excellent documentation that will allow us to reconstruct one of the most beautiful of these architectural treasures, the Gwozdziec wooden synagogue. We plan to rebuild its polychrome ceiling and timber-framed roof to 85% scale, using traditional tools, techniques, and materials.

The wooden synagogue is a perfect expression of the Golden Age of Polish Jewry during the 17th and 18th centuries. The Gwoździec ceiing and roof, a centerpiece in our presentation of the 1000-year history of Polish Jews, will extend up from the Core Exhibition into the grand public space of the Museum's modern building. The building was designed by Ilmari Lahdelma and Rainer Mahlamäki of Finland, winners of our international competition, the first in Poland for a public institution. From the Core Exhibition, visitors will look up at the polychrome ceiling, while from the grand public space of this modern building, they will look through a cutaway in the roof and see the marvelous timber frame structure within.

Project Plan

This truly unique project offers an exceptional educational experience. First, we will bring together an international team of students, conservation architects, architectural historians, master timber framers, and other experts to recover the knowledge of how to build such structures by actually building it. Second, we plan to actually build the structure, in parts, in empty synagogues in eight different locations in Poland and to bring the parts to Warsaw for final assembly. We will encourage participation of local townspeople, with the goal of stimulating local interest in the Jewish past of these towns, connecting Jews around the world that descend from those places with those living there today, and fostering collaborative efforts to preserve the memory of Jewish life in Poland. The Handshouse principle of "learn by building" demonstrates the power of architecture to build community and foster historical awareness and appreciation.

The Gwoździec Synagogue was a remarkable wooden synagogue built in the Polish Lithuanian Empire in 1731. (The town of Gwoździec is now in the present Ukraine.) According to Thomas C. Hubka, an architectural historian and expert on this structure, the Gwoździec 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.

Travel Program to Poland: A Once-in-a-Lifetime Opportunity

Students will travel to Poland to participate in the Handshouse Studio / Museum of the History of Polish Jews international workshops to create an 85% scale replica of the timber roof structure and polychrome wooden ceiling from the now lost 17th century wooden Gwoździec Synagogue. The completed roof structure will be installed in the new Museum of the History of Polish Jews and become a major part of the permanent core exhibition, set within the stunning architectural space of the Museum's modern building. The Museum is scheduled to open 2013 in Warsaw on the site of the former Warsaw Ghetto facing the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising monument.

Timber Frame Roof Workshop Travel Programs

Students will work alongside an international team of traditional carpenters from the Timber Framers Guild (www.tfguild.org), architects, artist, historians and educators to help with the reconstruction of the unique timber frame roof structure of the Gwoździec synagogue using period tools and techniques, as well as experience contemporary Polish life, visit historically important sites, and investigate the varied origins of Polish and Jewish Culture.

The Timber Frame Workshop will be located in Sanok, a charming city on a hill overlooking the San River on the edge of the Carpathian Mountains in southeastern Poland. Students will actively participate in the reconstruction of the 17th Century wooden Polish synagogue roof structure at the Folk Architecture Museum in Sanok, the largest open-air ethnographic architectual museum in Poland. All of the nearly 200, 17th and 18th century wooden synagogues built throughout the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth were destroyed by the end of World War II, yet the vernacular wooden architectural style - both aesthetically and structurally - are still apparent in many other existing wooden structures in Poland.

Students will uncover vital Jewish art and architectural history and culture prevalent in Poland prior to its systematic destruction in WWII. The timber roof structure will be installed in the Core Exhibition at the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw.

Schedule

Mass College of Art and Design: Group 1 May 23 - June 12
Mass College of Art and Design: Group 2 May 31 - June 18
School of the Art Institute of Chicago Group 3 June 8 - June 27
University of California, San Diego: Group 4 June 13 - July 1

Ceiling Painting Workshop Travel Programs

Students will work alongside an international team of architects, artist, historians and educators to participate with the painting of the wooden ceiling panels for the Gwoździec synagogue using traditional painting techniques, as well as experience contemporary Polish life, visit historically important sites, and investigate the varied origins of Polish and Jewish Culture.

These travel programs are studio courses open to beginning and advanced students from all disciplines but especially students of art, architecture, history, anthropology, Jewish studies, material culture, building arts, international studies, and Polish language.

The Painted Ceiling Workshops will be located in three cities throughout Poland. Handshouse Studio and the Museum of the History of Polish Jews will coordinate with these selected communites to use appropriate existing masonry synagogues in the cities as locations for the workshops of the Gwoździec synagogue ceiling painting. Possible communities include Kraków, Kazimierz Dolny, Sejny, Wroclaw, Lesko, Zamosc, Szczebrzeszyn, Łańcut, and Tykocin.

These workshop events will serve as teaching platform not only for students creating the paintings, but also for the local community. Demonstrations of the painting process open to the public will bring attention to local synagogues, the history of the people who worshipped in them, and the urgency of preserving existing masonry synagogues throughout Poland like those in which the workshops are being conducted. The ceiling painting will be installed into the timber roof structure as part of the core exhibition at the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw.

Schedule

Massachusetts College of Art and Design: Group 5 July 3 - July 21
Maryland Institute College of Art: Group 6 July 21 - Aug 8
Oberlin College and Kent State University: Group 7 - Aug 8 - Aug 26