From 26 March to 29 August 2004 the Jewish Historical
Museum presents the first international survey of architecture for
Jewish institutions from the late twentieth century to the present
day. Sixteen contemporary synagogues, Jewish museums and schools by
leading architects are featured in fourteen pavilions. Each of the
showcased designs is in itself extraordinary and reflects a growing
sense of Jewish identity in innovative forms.
The confidence radiated in recent years by clients and architects
in exciting and enterprising building projects testifies to a new
sense of Jewish awareness. While the architecture itself is
remarkable, the locations are also often prominent and imbue each
project with even greater force. This trend was first visible in
the new generation of Jewish museum buildings, in particular Daniel
Libeskind's revolutionary Jewish Museum in Berlin. Both inside and
out, this building is an expression of Jewish history in Germany
and the destruction of Jewish life in the Second World War.
Exceptional designs have also been produced for synagogues and
schools. Zvi Hecker's new community centre in Duisburg, for
example, is on a prime location in the city and the complex's
fan-like structure is not something that can easily be missed.
It took two generations after the war for this wave of innovation
to emerge. Jewish communities have begun to grow and thrive again.
The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the arrival of many
Russian Jews in the West provided an additional impulse. While in
the past Jewish institutions had kept a low profile, this revival
of Jewish life presented an opportunity for several groundbreaking
architectural projects.
YIBANEH! (Hebrew for 'it will be built'), a Jewish
Historical Museum initiative, will travel after Amsterdam to
Osnabrück, Warsaw, Berlin, Vienna, Munich and London. The design
for the exhibition interior is by Kosmann.dejong. Included in the
show is a film by Joram ten Brink in which architects and clients
discuss the background to various projects in the presentation. The
exhibition is accompanied by a bilingual catalogue (English/German)
published by Uitgeverij Prestel, Munich.
For further information and/or visuals please contact the
Communications Department
T +31 (0)20 5310370
F +31 (0)20 5310311
E communication