Obj. ID: 8855
Jewish Architecture  White Synagogue in Joniškis, Lithuania

White Synagogue in Joniškis - Interior

The White Synagogue was built in 1864–65. It is a high brick structure, covered with a tin plastered roof. Its rectangular ground plan integrated a spacious prayer hall on the eastern side and a vestibule with a staircase leading to the upper floor women’s section on the western side. As can be seen from the interwar photographs, all the façades were symmetrical, similarly designed, plastered and whitewashed. Lesenes, decorated by sunken panels and small paterae, divided the longitudinal and latitudinal facades into six and four bays respectively. The façades were crowned with a dentiled cornice, and curtain-shaped four-bay gables rose above it. The tall round-headed windows under semicircular pediments were placed high above the ground level. The western and eastern gables had two tiers. Two central bays on the lower tier were pierced by the round-headed windows under semicircular pediments, and its lateral bays, as well as the upper tier, were pierced by biforia windows supplied with coupled semicircular pediments and blind oculi. Square turrets terminated every lesene and enhanced the skyline of the synagogue. The southern and northern gables were single-tier, with similar large windows in the central bays, and oculi in the lateral ones.

In the interior, the synagogue was spanned with a wooden barrel vault,29 and probably lit by twelve windows. The style of the synagogue shows the lasting impact of Baroque architecture well into the second half of the 19th century.

The regularity of the façades hides the internal divisions and the two-storey structure of the western part. The round-headed arches testify to the impact of Neo-Classicism and the Rundbogen style. The biforia windows may be a reference to the Tablets of the Law.

After WWII the synagogue was turned into a storage and later a gym; its layout and façades were altered, and the interior was destroyed. Many windows were blocked, pediments removed, and the northern and southern gables pulled down. A two-storey silicate brick addition was attached to the western façade in 1964; it was demolished in the 1990s. In 2001 upon the initiatives of the Department of Cultural Heritage Protection and theJoniškisDistrictMunicipality, architect Saulutė Domanskienė prepared a project for the conservation and urgent repair of the building. Conservation works started in 2002, with the aim of adapting the building to the needs of theJoniškisRegionalMuseum. The roof was replaced and covered with new tin, and the side gables were reconstructed in their original shape.