Hamburg Synagogue

David Kohn Architects, in collaboration with Hoehler+Partners and Wirtz Landscape, were selected to take part in a major international design competition for the reconstruction of the Bornplatz Synagogue in Hamburg, which was destroyed by the Nazis in 1938. The proposal takes the ambition to rebuild the synagogue as an opportunity to recentre Jewish Life in Hamburg, both physically and culturally and seeks to establish a new balance, between life and memory, between different communities, between faith traditions and between different parts of the city. A series of rooms, from public spaces to interiors, become places to encounter each other and the divine. A network of curving hedges creates a safe garden-like setting while the reform synagogue building meets the orthodox synagogue in a welcoming urban embrace.

The new programme is in a single building that aligns with the university to the east, completes the square to the west whilst embracing the orthodox synagogue in a curving gesture to the south. Orthodox and reform synagogue entrances are aligned and create a double head to the new complex. The dome of the orthodox synagogue and the silhouettes of the reform synagogue’s prayer room and youth centre towers are arranged in a picturesque manner to both give legibility to the urban space and to create welcoming gateways from both the east and west. A large arched passage, reminiscent of the Chilehaus, brings south light into the centre of the site and frames a view of the synagogue dome.