Architectural historian Sergey R. Kravstov, of the Center for Jewish Art in Jerusalem, has published a detailed and freely available new article on 20th century synagogue architecture in Latvia — and how the architects of interwar synagogues there found inspiration in ancient structures. The article was published in the journal Arts volume 8, issue 3 (2019).
He first briefly discusses how archaeological discoveries influenced synagogue design in the United States and central Europe, then concentrates on three synagogue in Latvia designed between World Wars I and II.
He writes:
Synagogue architecture during the second half of the nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth century was seeking novel modes of expression, and therefore the remains of ancient synagogues that were being discovered by western archeologists within the borders of the Biblical Land of Israel became a new source of inspiration. As far away as the New World, the design of contemporary synagogues was influenced by discoveries such as by the American Jewish architect, Arnold W. Brunner, who referenced the Baram Synagogue in the Galilee in his Henry S. Frank Memorial Synagogue at the Jewish Hospital in Philadelphia (1901). Less known is the fact that the archaeological discoveries in the Middle East also influenced the design of synagogues in the interwar period, in the newly-independent Baltic state of Latvia. Local architects picked up information about these archaeological finds from professional and popular editions published in German and Russian.
The main examples he examines are the synagogue in Majori, a district of Jurmala on the Latvian seaside, and the Hasidic synagogue in the inland town of Bauska. (He also considers the design of a synagogue in another district of Jurmala that was not built.)
Kravtsov writes:
The authors of these Latvian synagogues were the renowned Jewish architect Paul Mandelstamm, little known Latvian architect B. Kļaviņš, the Jewish contractor Abram Ragol, and unknown technician or architect in Bauska. […] The usage of the style and shapes of the Galilean synagogues was meant to reinstate the historical bond of the Latvian Jews with the Land of Israel (the believably never-broken cultural thread traceable to the antiquity), and in the case of Mandelstamm served to identify him as a Jewish architect. Latvian synagogues were designed in the then-popular stripped classicism, a style that bridged the historical past and modernity, and thus they unobtrusively mentioned the Mediterranean cradle of the Jewish people as well as its pertinence to the modern world. This style ensured that the new synagogues fitted in with mainstream Latvian architecture. It expressed the mightiness of Latvian statehood and the congregations’ identification with the nationalism of modern independent Latvia.
Neither of the two Latvian synagogues Kravtsov writes about is used today as a synagogue: According to the Jewish Museum of Latvia, the synagogue in Majori, which opened in 1939, was converted into a children’s sport school after WW2 and then into a DIY shop, and is currently disused. The synagogue in Bauska is an office.
(NOTE: As we reported earlier, The “Synagogue Garden,” a sculptural/architectural memorial installed in 2017 at the site of the destroyed Great Synagogue in Bauska, received an “Annual Latvian Award in Construction” award.)
See Center for Jewish Art documentation for the Majori synagogue
See Center for Jewish Art documentation for the Bauska synagogue