TELL Magazine: October - November 2019

The austere lines of the parapets and
discrete decoration are symbolic
of unadorned principle, almost
invisible to the contemporary
observer. The next time you are at
Emanuel have a look at the brick
work. It’s full of detail and symbols
that have been fired into the bricks.
Even the displacement of these
elements form subtle patterns across
the facades. The symbolic bricks
have been laid to create a diagonal
grid in the brickwork, look closely
and you will see that the bricks
with the Magen David pressed in
them have been laid slightly proud
of the main wall line, forming a
secondary Magen David pattern.
We now have exciting plans (pending
DA approval) to restore the sacred
presence of this sanctuary, by
restructuring its interior to enhance
the use of space, light and sound.
We also dream to accentuate its
uniqueness with a redesign of the
North Wing Learning Centre. This
vision will be on display in the breezeway
during the High Holy Days.
The siting of the Heritage Sanctuary
is really interesting. The conventional
wisdom would have been to place it
at the street frontage, not at the end
of a long avenue of Cyprus trees.
Again this is modernist thinking.
It is not the architecture of the Sun
King overlooking Versaille, with
the world radiating symmetrically
around a static vision of god. It is
dynamic, its perspective, the interplay
of asymmetrical prisms, changing as
you approach, different perspectives,
different points of view, different ways
of seeing the same thing – pluralism.
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