New Synagogue (Dresden)

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New Synagogue Dresden

The New Synagogue has been the synagogue of Dresden's Jewish community since 2001 . It is located at Hasenberg 1 on the elevated old town bank of the Elbe between the former fortifications on Brühl's Terrace and the head of the Carolabrücke above the terrace bank .

history

Semper Synagogue, 1910
New Synagogue and Jewish Community Center Dresden with details of the location of the Old Synagogue (north is on the left)

The synagogue and the Community Center were built on the site where from 1840 up to the November pogroms in 1938 , the Old Synagogue of Gottfried Semper was. The groundbreaking ceremony took place on November 9, 1998, exactly 60 years after the Semper Synagogue was destroyed. The consecration was also held on November 9th, this time in 2001. The new synagogue in Dresden is the first new synagogue to be built in East Germany.

In 1997, an international competition was announced for the complex of synagogue and community center. The Dresden Jewish community decided on the third-place design by the Saarbrücken architects Wandel, Hoefer and Lorch + Hirsch. The building complex was completed in 2001. The new building was honored as European Building of the Year in 2002. The New Synagogue is a “cube turned towards the east”, whereby the “chosen cube shape ... is based on the first temples of the Israelites ”.

Due to construction defects, both buildings of the 22 million euro construction project are leaking. The annual additional costs in the five-digit euro range put the Jewish community in constant financial distress.

description

New synagogue and memorial stone for the Semper Synagogue, which was destroyed in the Night of the Pogroms in 1938

The New Synagogue and the community center consist of two opposing, towering cubes made of “solid molded stone with a sandstone character”. A rationalism and abstract modernity characterize the building complex.

New synagogue

Exterior

Above the portal in Hebrew: "Let my house be called a 'house of prayer' for all peoples."

The building is made of colored concrete (massive shaped stones) with a "sandstone character, analogous to the Wailing Wall Jerusalem". The gray-yellowish color and the structure of the building fit in well with the sandstone architecture of Dresden's old town .

The building is 24 meters high. The facade consists of 34 layers of molded stone masonry, with each layer slightly twisted in relation to the lower one. While the lower stone layer is oriented towards the property boundaries, the uppermost stone layer is exactly aligned to the east at a height of 24 meters. With this trick, optimal use of the narrow property (made smaller after the war by building a new bridge) and necessary alignment with the cardinal points are connected. The dynamic of the rotation relativizes the monumentality of the building, and the offset stones create interesting shading.

The entrance portal consists of a double-leaf wooden door 2.2 meters wide and 5.5 meters high. The inscription, which could also be read at the old synagogue, was affixed in golden Hebrew letters: “Let my house be a house of prayer for all peoples.” Above the portal, the originally preserved Star of David was affixed, which the Dresden fireman Alfred Neugebauer received after the November pogroms 1938 had saved.

inner space

Metal curtain that encloses the prayer room

In the east of the interior is the Toraschrank ( Aron ha-Qodesch ) in which 4 Torahs of 1 per meter of height, 35 kg and (rolled) about 54 meters in length are kept, the podium with the Vorbeterpult ( Bima ), the Eternal light ( Ner Tamid ) and an electronic organ.

“The synagogue illustrates the pair of terms temple and tent as a basic architectural experience of Judaism.” That is why the interior is constructed as a space (“tent”) within a space (“temple”). Suspended from the ceiling, a canopy-like tent made of metal mesh forms the actual meeting room, which is aligned with the ceiling grid and is therefore corrugated. The fabric represents a "symbolic tent made of metal mesh":

“This festive, golden shimmering curtain, which encloses the praying community like a protective cloth, conceals a wonderfully lyrical poetry. It also symbolizes the flexible, emerging of Judaism, while the stone temple itself expresses the eternal, ineradicable of the Jewish faith. Temple and tent motifs as a basic architectural experience of Judaism. "

Community center

Community center
Community center with a synagogue building opposite

Exterior

South of the synagogue is the somewhat lower community center, consisting of a 1400 m² 3-storey functional building with a foyer. The community rooms have a large glass front towards the courtyard. So "[the building] opens like a peep box to the public courtyard." 39 small windows structure the facade on the three sides of the street.

inner space

The community center serves the community as a multi-purpose building and is also intended to be a “house of encounter with Judaism”. Events and concerts are also held there. There is room for 300 people in the center's large community hall. A library, administration rooms, a meeting room and training rooms are located on the two upper floors. Even the office of Rabbi Akiva Weingarten can be found there.

literature

  • Ingeborg flag: Dresden, city guide of contemporary architecture . The example, Darmstadt 2004, ISBN 3-935243-48-0 .

items

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Dresden synagogue. The new Building. In: www.dresden.de. Retrieved February 28, 2018 .
  2. ↑ A little masterpiece. New synagogue inaugurated in Dresden. In: www.baunetz.de. BauNetz Media GmbH, November 9, 2001, accessed on February 28, 2018 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e f New Synagogue. Schalom Dresden: a modern Jewish house of God on the edge of the old town - but in the middle of us. In: www.das-neue-dresden.de. Thomas Kantschew, accessed February 28, 2018 .
  4. ^ Ivonne Wistuba: Synagogue becomes a debt trap. In: Saxon newspaper . September 24, 2013, accessed February 28, 2018 .
  5. ^ Ingeborg flag: Dresden, city guide of contemporary architecture . The example, Darmstadt 2004, ISBN 3-935243-48-0 , p. 22 .

Web links

Commons : Neue Synagoge Dresden  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 51 ° 3 '9.5 "  N , 13 ° 44' 48.8"  E