The Kibbitz
Does that resonate? Why have there been so few great synagogues built in the past half-century or so? It does resonate, very much so. Erich Mendelsohn did a couple of synagogues in America. Not great, but pretty good. I have an office of 80 peo- ple, maybe 20 percent are Jews. And when we get a Jewish institution in here, there’s always that sense of skep- ticism. Can we transcend the taste level? With exceptions—the Skirball Center, in Los Angeles, is an exempla- ry exception — it remains true. I think in the haredi and religious community, it’s most extreme. And the sadness for me is it’s not just the aesthetics of building a synagogue; it’s also the way space is used. I did a building for Rav Goren [a former chief rabbi of Israel] called the Idra. It abuts the Western Wall piazza: an old building, quite beautiful, that I restored. And within years, they built a horrible cover on the terrace with an awful makeshift roof. Because they want to have events there, they built fences on the upper roof—the ugliest fences, it looks like a pris- on and has lights that look like pris- on lights. I have my house next door looking down on it, and I said with disbelief that they were doing every- thing you could do to destroy how that building appears in the city and how it contributes to what’s around it. It is disastrous. And that’s true down the line. You go around the Jewish Quarter, which started with some good guide- lines and so on, and people keep add- ing things: terraces, this and that, pergolas—but with no control, and there’s no will. There’s no will of the authorities, the city, or the Hevra Le- shikum Ha’rova [the organization overseeing the development of the Old City in Jerusalem] to control it. There is no judgment of the people
Mamilla plays a cen- tral role in Jerusalem by linking the old and new cities, and the Jewish and Arab quar- ters. Safdie’s plan for the area was approved in 1972; politics, litiga- tion, and opposition by various groups delayed its comple- tion until 2008. In addition to being one of the only places where the full range of Jerusalem’s popu- lation goes to shop, it is remarkable for its blend of contempo- rary architecture with historic buildings. The Skirball Cultural Centre was built over 30 years. It was designed to nestle into the Santa Monica Mountains by integrating stepped gardens throughout the campus, and cre- ating expansive views of the landscape from inside the various buildings.
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