Synagogue (St. Gallen)
The synagogue of the city of St. Gallen was built in 1880/81. It is located in the Bahnhofquartier at Frongartenstrasse 18.
history
Only after the restrictive laws for the Jews were replaced by freer ones by a resolution of the Grand Council in 1863 was it possible to found an independent Jewish community in the city of St. Gallen. As a result, the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde St. Gallen was founded on September 17, 1863 . The first Jewish cemetery was established in 1866 in Hagenbuch in the Krontal. This cemetery was moved to the Kesselhalde in 1914.
The first synagogue was set up in the back yard of the Haus zum Stein am Bohl (the house was demolished in 1931). In 1879 the religious community acquired a building site on Frongartenstrasse. The construction contract for a synagogue went from the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde to the architecture office Chiodera und Tschudy from Zurich . The 250-seat synagogue was built between 1880 and 1881 in the Moorish-Byzantine style . It was inaugurated on September 21, 1881.
In addition to the Israelite religious community, a second Jewish community established itself from the 1880s onwards; this consisted of Eastern European Jews who had immigrated. The Adass Yisroel Jewish Community was officially established on January 25, 1917. She built her own synagogue at Kapellenstrasse 3. On February 11, 1919, the synagogue of the Adass Yisroel community was inaugurated.
The two Jewish communities merged with one another in 1952; the synagogue on Kapellenstrasse was abandoned and demolished.
Building
The building has a square floor plan with a central dome, which is framed by four corner domes. The street facade has two floors, which are separated by a cornice. The upper one has a middle tracery window, which is flanked on both sides by a window. The two entrances are located below the side windows on the lower floor, with three small assembled windows in between. The entrances have horseshoe arches. Originally the outer facade was brightly painted and decorated with stripes, today it is kept in simple natural tones. The interior painting, which is also colorful, is still in its original form.
The building was renovated in 1973.
literature
- INSA Inventory of Modern Swiss Architecture 1850-1921, Volume 8 , St. Gallen, Sarnen, Schwyz, Schaffhausen, Orell Füssli 1996 ISBN 3-280-02410-2, pages 122–123
See also
Web links
- About the Jewish community in St. Gallen at Alemannia Judaica