Making History: The Wooden Synagogue Replication Project, 2011 [Design Build Workshop Leader]
Sanok, Poland
Handshouse Studios
In the summer of 2011, I traveled with several School of the Art Institute students to Poland along with other faculty and students from around Chicago to participate in Making History: the Wooden Synagogue Replication Project.
During summers of 2011 and 2012, Handshouse Studio and the Association of the Jewish Historical Institute collaborated to replicate the 17th century Gwozdziec Synagogue roof and painted ceiling, to be the centerpiece of the Core Exhibition of Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, Poland and become a window into a past that was nearly lost. The Gwozdziec Reconstruction Making/History: The Wooden Synagogue Replication Project has been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for students from many disciplines to work in 12 workshops located in 8 cities throughout Poland involving 58 professionals and 238 students from 26 American and 12 Polish universities. Using the Handshouse Studio educational model of ‘learn by doing’ and working shoulder to shoulder with an international team of professionals, they rebuilt this extraordinary example of Jewish/Polish art and architectural history.
