Master Class in Preservation and Architecture 04: Religious Buildings

Historic religious buildings in the heart of modern cities pose a unique challenge for architects, planners, and communities. For the city, they serve as focal points charged with memory, emotion, and cultural identity. In addition to the preservation principles tied to material, technology, and climate, which were examined in previous sessions in the series, the preservation of religious buildings forces us to grapple with a complex programmatic ethics of a sacred and enclosed structure in relation to an architectural cultural heritage with broad public value.

The fourth meeting in the series will be dedicated entirely to the Great Synagogue in Tel Aviv, an iconic structure currently undergoing one of the most complex and intriguing preservation projects in the country. The Synagogue, originally designed in the eclectic style by architect Yehuda Magidovich and inaugurated in the 1920s, underwent a radical "facelift" in 1969, designed by architect Arieh Elhanani. Elhanani added a colonnade of massive concrete pillars to the building in the spirit of the time. This change not only reshaped the building's architectural appearance but also created a buffer between it and the street, turning it, over the years, into a disconnected island in the heart of the urban space.

In the current project, led by the Municipality in collaboration with the planning team, a dramatic decision was made to dismantle Elhanani's iconic concrete pillars from the 1960s and re-expose the original eclectic facades from the 1920s. In this meeting, we will address this decision and ask: How do we decide between different temporal layers of the same structure?

In the evening, we will scrutinize this decision, discussing how the dismantling of the building's envelope and the establishment of the urban square around it change the relationship between the sacred and the secular, and reconnect the building to the city's nightlife and community life. We will use terms raised in previous meetings in the series, such as Adaptive Reuse, to discuss the tension between the need to maintain a performative space for prayer and its potential to serve as an anchor for cultural life in the renewing city around it, and the role of architectural preservation in determining narrative and cultural heritage.

By examining the Great Synagogue, we gain a glimpse into a broader discussion about the professional, regulatory, and public dilemmas accompanying the preservation of synagogues and religious buildings in Israel and worldwide.

Featuring:

Dr. Arch. Jeremie Hoffmann, Head of the Preservation Department at the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality

Arch. Uri Padan, "Uri Padan Architects," Conservation and Restoration Architect for the Synagogue project

Arch. Adi Rose, Senior Conservation Coordinator at the Tel Aviv Municipality, responsible for the Synagogue preservation project

Rabbi Yitzhak Zeev Rabbi of the Synagogue

Professional Management and Moderation: Arch. Sharon Golan, Head of the Liebling Haus Research Lab

Content Production: Arch. Noam Sar Shalom, Liebling Haus Research Lab

The event will be held on Zoom; a link will be sent upon registration.

The Master Class in Preservation and Architecture series offers a broad perspective on architectural preservation as a field that connects research, building culture, and thinking about the future of cities. Through examples from Tel Aviv's urban space, we will learn how buildings tell a story of society, climate, and ideas, and we will address urban current affairs related to the preservation of the built environment. Inspired by the approach of the Liebling Haus Research Lab, the Master Class will present the work of preservation as a tool for understanding the city in the present and as a basis for creative thinking about its future, and not just as an act of protecting the past.