The South American firm Equipo de Architectura, after winning an initial competition, carries out the renovation of a synagogue for the Hebraic Union of Paraguay.
Preserving the perimeter walls and the roof, the project is volumetrically composed by two parallelepipeds intersected with each other, which create a large room surrounded by a filter space, that is the entrance to the synagogue.
The building is therefore conceived as a transition path between exterior and interior, through a sequence of layers. The concrete of the walls is used to protect and hide the original structure, and the perimeter space is where silence begins, created to protect the religious gathering area from noise.
In the prayer room, in addition, the light never comes directly, but only through the skylights, shaped like truncated cones, and the external interspace, where the sun is refracted by a wooden brise soleil.
The materials have been used exploiting their nature to characterize the atmospheres of the different places. The concrete left exposed, which we find outside, represents the protective shell of the temple. Rusty metal was used as a metaphor for the resilience of the Jewish people, while wood, employed to cover both the walls and the ceiling of the ceremonial hall, gives warmth and comfort to the atmosphere.
- Project:
- UHP Synagogue
- Location:
- Asunción, Paraguay
- Architects:
- Equipo de Arquitectura (Horacio Cherniavsky + Viviana Pozzoli)
- Collaborators:
- Jonathan Sosky, Diego Soto
- Construction:
- SIAR
- Year of project:
- 2017
- Year of construction:
- 2019
- Total surface:
- 375 smq