Ola Sobczyk

Rituals of control questions the possibility of the cultural dialogue in the territory of the Jewish communities in an urban space. What I would like to achieve with my research and project is to create a spatial interference that communicates the cultures through design. I decided to design the synagogue in Canvey Island. I explored the history and structure of small Jewish communities integrated in small Polish towns before the Second World War - called shtetls- environment of a bizarre symbiosis between Poles and Jews that conceived the only ever existing Jewish architectural style of the wooden synagogues.

I migrated to Bethlehem in Occupied Palestine and Stamford Hill in London in order to understand the scale of the wall / cultural wall in relation to reading the periphery and crossing the periphery. Based on that research I could establish the way of storytelling through architectural and spatial representation. I called it the language of security in order to discover the extreme example of the boundary within Jewish community. My main consideration is the cultural aspect of spatial language of security expressed by elements closely related to the culture - objects of rituals. Jewish community from Stamford Hill deals with higher and higher rents and their traditionally big families need more space. I learned from the community in London that they are slowly migrating to Canvey Island in Essex, where the Thames River meets the sea. I finally got to Canvey Island in February 2020.

I decided to design a synagogue for Canvey Island Jewish community because, as a ritual place, it is created as a set of boundaries and, as a community centre, it is a focal point of the community and they don’t have it there yet. I chose a secluded spot, by the river Thames and sea meeting point, as the synagogues were placed like that traditionally. I organized the traditional objects of rituals - bimah, Aron Hakodesh and the non-structural, decorative ceiling - in a space according to the ritual boundaries, acting like a set designer working with walls and voids with regards to the permanence and temporary motive related to the fact that Canvey Island is below sea level and has a long sea wall. I speculated on two scenarios: in 10 years with a vibrant community around the wooden complex and in 200 years when only the stone objects of rituals survive as a monument.

I question the possibility of transcending the cultural boundaries through design in the smallest scale of body / object in order to create a modern shtetl based on the symbiosis between the cultures.