Zabludow Synagogue Project

Student Involvement

The following are comments about the Zabludow Model project from the students who participated in the class at Mass College of Art.

The Technology and Culture course and accompanying workshop provided a wonderful opportunity to unify a number of students and professionals from diverse backgrounds and interests for the purpose of translating and comprehending ideas from another time and culture.

The idea behind the class is genius, though. This is the best possible way to get people interested in history.

Looking at the plans of the synagogue that no longer exists, but was at one time an important place for many people, is amazing. These few drawings have opened up a past for us as artists, architects, and historians. We are able to come together and put together a memory of this place. While working on this model, I would find myself looking eye level into this miniature synagogue and thinking about people inside this place, praying and reflecting on life and God. It has been an amazing thing to be a part of the building of this model.

For me, the class contained many lessons centered around how individual interpretations of the drawings could have (and did) lead to a number of variations in the model.

Establishing a connection between the model and the real building via the hewing and framing demonstration completed the cycle of exploration.

I really learned a lot about documenting buildings. Whenever I've done drawings before, I always assumed that whoever was looking at it would understand what I was drawing even if it wasn't drawn accurately. I now know that is not true and I will be more cautious with my drawings. I also learned a lot about building models.

I am a very visual / hands on person. This kind of reconstructive research is a wonderful way to learn about history. I am able to absorb information more easily than if I were to just read about it.

I do wish we got more into the history a bit more, but it would have been hard to do that without giving up the building part of the project. This class would be wonderful over two semesters.

The Workshop was amazing and necessary, not only to finish the model, but to allow people who would otherwise never interact to meet each other.

The workshop was a great experience. It was great working with all those other people who gave us a different insight into how the building was made. I think that we should have had two of them - one in the middle and one at the end.

Working with and interpreting the drawings to create the model was very beneficial to me as an architect. It would be good for the program to see more architecture students involved both for the class and the architecture program.

I particularly enjoyed hearing Tilford Bartman speak since he seemed to have a sort of "detective" role in learning what he knows about Zabludow - very much like our way of learning about it.

It was really nice having Tilford Bartman and Tom Hubka at the workshop to have conversations that continued the connection between their lectures and our hands-on building.

think the workshop was a good segue to our Poland trip since many of the people who are going on the trip (especially Magda) were there to meet and get a sense of what the trip will be like.

An inspirational, fun, and educational Handshouse experience.