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Studio Libeskind unveils preliminary design for Tree of Life synagogue shooting memorial in Pittsburgh

2023-12-08T15:16:00-05:00

Preliminary designs for Studio Libeskind’s long-awaited 10/27 Memorial at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh have officially been announced following a sensitive design consultation with families of the victims of the tragic 2018 mass shooting that left eleven worshipers dead and six more injured.

“The journey to unveiling the preliminary memorial designs has been a long and emotional one, but I am grateful for a process that prioritized our hopes that our loved ones are remembered for how they lived, not solely for how they were murdered,” said Diane Rosenthal, a member of the Memorialization Working Group who lost two siblings in the attack, which stands as the deadliest antisemitic hate incident in American history.

A March 2022 rendering of the Tree of Life project depicting the expanded building. Image: Studio Libeskind

The group, which represents all three congregations included within the 70-year-old synagogue, was also able to visit the memorial to passengers of Flight ...

Daniel Libeskind selected for renovation of Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue, site of 2018 mass shooting

2021-05-04T13:25:00-04:00

Daniel Libeskind, an architect known for memorializing historical trauma, will turn the site of 11 deaths back into a home for worship as well as a place to learn about confronting hatred.

In the wake of the October 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting that left eleven worshipers dead and six more injured, the Tree of Life – Or L'Simcha Congregation was faced with a long internal discussion about the future of its building. This week, the synagogue's leadership announced the selection of New York architect Daniel Libeskind, a son of Polish Holocaust survivors himself, to lead the renovation effort of the campus.

As the New York Times reports, the initiative will also create classrooms, a communal space, a Hall of Memories dedicated to the 2018 attack as well as spaces for exhibitions and public programs of the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh.

"We must return," the paper quotes Rabbi Hazzan Jeffrey Myers of Tree of Life. "If we don’t, we give the message that evil won."

The Stories of Beth Haim Brought to Life by Kossmanndejong and Loerakker Olsson Architects

2021-03-18T19:16:00-04:00

Designed by Kossmanndejong and Loerakker Olsson Architects, Beth Haim—Hebrew for ‘House of Life’—is one of the oldest Sephardic cemeteries in the world. The cemetery serves as a testament to the Portuguese and Jewish community of Amsterdam, displaying graves from the 17th century and beyond.

The interior of Beth Haim, a tribute to ‘House of Life’ with its light space featuring a large skylight and reflective ivory-glazed tiles. The horizontal screen is made of an introduction film—a narrating window to the cemetery behind. Photo courtesy of Kossmanndejong.

Photo courtesy of Kossmanndejong.

Kossmanndejong and Loerakker Olsson Architects sought to translate the transient nature of the historic cemetery onto the materials used in the design. Featuring a façade embedded with broken masonry, delicate natural stone features, and weathered brass doors upon entrance, this sense of transience is completed with the roof construction of untreated solid oak and benches to match.

Beth Haim, pavili...

Mclldowie Partners unveil new design for Jewish Arts Quarter in Australia

2020-08-03T15:54:00-04:00

Melbourne-based McIldowie Partners has released plans for the Jewish Arts Quarter, a cultural hub that will include the Jewish Museum of Australia: Gandel Centre of Judaica, the Kadimah Jewish Cultural Centre, Sholem Aleichem College, the Jewish Holocaust Centre, Classic Cinemas, and more, reports Elsternwick Village.

"Forming a new cultural precinct with two world-class museums in the Jewish Holocaust Centre and the Jewish Museum of Australia, with enthusiastic support from the City of Glen Eira, will enrich our community and visitors keen for a taste of Jewish Life," said Barry Fradkin OAM, president of the Jewish Museum of Australia: Gandel Centre of Judaica to Elsternwick Village.

A tower will serve as an important focal point of the new project. Its facade contains dressing of folded concrete panels that create a distinct depth and texture to the structure's exterior surface.

New art project in a Frank Lloyd Wright synagogue seeks to explore Jewish and black diasporas

2019-08-20T15:02:00-04:00

Topped by a glass pyramidal tower that infuses the interior with natural light, the Beth Sholom Synagogue in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania ranks as one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s most striking architectural creations. Still, the preservation foundation that tends to the welfare of the 1959 synagogue is eager to raise its profile and reposition it as a cultural resource.

An immersive installation blending various artistic disciplines is set to open on September 11 inside Frank Lloyd Wright's iconic mid-century Beth Sholom Synagogue in Elkins Park, PA.

The Art Newspaper reports that the foundation tasked with the preservation of the building has "invited the artist David Hartt to 'activate' the space with an installation that explores the histories of the Jewish and black diasporas in the US."

Plans revealed for the future European Center of Judaism in Paris

2015-06-30T20:59:00-04:00

Construction has begun on the future Centre Européen du Judaïsme (European Centre of Judaism) in the 17th arrondissement of Paris [...]. The planned cost of the project is €10m, with €2.7m in state and regional public funding, and it is due to be completed in spring 2017. Covering 4,900 sq. m over eight floors, the Jewish centre will include a synagogue, library, theatre and classrooms. The new building has been designed by the local architects Bruno Fléchet and Stéphane Maupin [...].

Rem Koolhaas tapped to design Los Angeles Temple expansion

2015-04-24T12:54:00-04:00

Wilshire Boulevard Temple, famous for its ornate 1929 synagogue, is trying to create another Los Angeles landmark, negotiating with the Pritzker Prize-winning Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas to design a building next door for special events. It would be open for use by the public as well as by congregants. “Architecture is a form of prayer,” said Rabbi Steven Z. Leder of the Reform congregation, which is in Koreatown.

Is There a Jewish Architecture?

2012-02-02T20:13:00-05:00

Within the parameters of the building art there cannot be artists like Saul Bellow and Philip Roth or like Sidney Lumet and Woody Allen, who in books and movies probe the excruciating details of the Jewish encounter with American capitalism and lifestyle. Architecture cannot tell stories about one’s Jewish mother or one’s Jewish nose. Especially in the era of high modernism, architecture possessed limited expressive resources for detailed cultural critique.

Is there a type of Jewish architecture that unifies the work of Louis Kahn, Peter Eisenman, Frank Gehry, and Daniel Libeskind?

Architectural historian Mitchell Schwarzer reviews Gaven Rosenfeld's ambitious book, Building After Auschwitz: Jewish Architecture and the Memory of the Holocaust, and comes away unconvinced.