Existing Jewish Cemetery is chronologically a second Jewish cemetery in Łódź. It was opened in 1892. Pre-burial hall building, designed by Adolf Zeligson, was built six years later. Cemetery, as well as pre-burial hall building and the entry gate, are listed monuments. Cemetery is an exeptional testimony to a cultural tradition and important point of Jewish groups’ tours in Poland and in Europe. This is also one of most fundamental monuments in Łódź. Efforts are underway to include Jewish cemetery in Łódź, together with four other European Jewish cemeteries, on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. Therefore, among other necessities, there is an increasing need to renovate the existing historical building and create a museum in pre – burial hall building of the cemetery, ensuring all necessary facilities.
This leads us to the idea of architectural conception project, comprised of three elements:
- Renovation of existing historic pre-burial hall building
- Interior design of existing building for museum purpose
- Design of a new building in this historical context for supply facilities purpose. New building would contain entry area- both to the cemetery and to the museum, cash desks and security place, toilets, utility room, storage space and auditorium/ workshop space with small café/kitchen supply base.
There are several reasons for creation of a new building. Primarily, taking into consideration future needs of museum, existing building is not big enough to contain both exposition and facilities. What more, situation of new pavillion covers location of present utility buildings so this is a logical reference to actual use of this place. Finally, such solution lets us create a functional space organization and gives us a possibility to place permanent employees in a new building which is respecting thermal comfort.
Form of the new pavillion results mainly from the historical context. Pre-burial hall is a building referring to industrial character appropriate for Łódź factories’ architecture of the time. It is a red brick three-bay edifice with a well-marked avant-corps of central bay. The same three-axis idea is held in the design of cemetery gate. New building is a simple glass pavillion so its form (nor function) doesn’t compete with the impressive form of pre-burial hall. It is just a background exposing the historical building. New pavillion contains three cuboid volumes, central one longer than side ones, to refer to three-axis concept of existing building. Location of new building refers to present location of utility buildings. However, glass pavillion overpasses this area and joins the pre-burial hall building. Thanks to this solution, control of visitors entering the cemetery area is possible at cash desk located in glass pavillion just next to the entry. Moreover, all functions are placed under one roof. Lastly, also through demolition of secondarily immured door openings, it is possible to create consistent, continuous visiting route passing through all rooms of pre-burial hall building.
Designed museum interior project is based on following assumptions:
- Funeral ceremony hall should be arranged in a way enabling holding occasional funeral ceremonies. Therefore, light movable glass presenting panels are planned for this area. They can be easily moved to two closed glass areas leaving the rest of the room for the ceremony purpose.
- The building itself should be well exposed. Therefore, preserved historical elements such as Mauritanian motive painting, wooden girders in funeral ceremony hall, as well as terrazzo tiles floors in several rooms should be restored. Impressive girders should be illuminated for better exposition and for a better ambiance of the space.
- New museum areas should include exposition of remaining mobile relics.
- The museum should have a clear visual identification (idea of repeated hexagonal shape coming from Star of David shape in presenting panels and furniture of all spaces)
- Museum should propose multilayer (multidimensional) story (idea of three layers – historical, funeral rites and symbolism presentation, people presentation). Nevertheless, museum programming should be a subject of separate, profoundly researched programming project.
Proposed architectural project emphasizes importance of historical pre-burial hall building and historical context, in general. Whole idea is to respect and preserve existing valuable matter, completing it where necessary using modern materials and solutions, offering improved and adjusted to new needs functionality. Aforesaid approach seems to be the most appropriate taking into consideration the place – cemetery being a witness of turbulent and rich history.
