Cymbalista Synagogue and Jewish Heritage Center - Architectural Context

Architectural Context

The Cymbalista Synagogue and Jewish Heritage Center was made early in a time when famous architects where designing many high profile buildings in Israel, and developing a form of creative contemporary architecture around Jewish institutions. One such institution, the Jewish Museum Berlin hosted an exhibition, Jewish Identity in Architecture which featured the Cymbalista Synagogue. Earlier international architects had designed synagogues in their signature modern ways: Beth Sholom Congregation (Elkins Park, Pennsylvania) by Frank Lloyd Wright and the proposed redesign of the Hurva Synagogue by Louis Kahn. Mario Botta had designed the building for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art a few years before and then the Évry Cathedral, with a similar cylindrical shape, just prior. The Cymbalista Synagogue and Jewish Heritage Center was the twelfth and culminating project in a series of religious works by Mario Botta which were shown in London at the Royal Institute of British Architects in an exhibition entitled, Architetture del Sacro: Prayers in Stone.