Obj. ID: 8863
Architecture Wooden Synagogue and Rabbi's house in Kaltinėnai, Lithuania
The wooden building designed by engineer Kazys Kralikas in 1938 includes a synagogue and a rabbi’s apartment. After WWII the structure served as agricultural storage and it has stood abandoned since the 1990s.
The design features a building of rectangular plan measuring 7 by 15 m. Its higher eastern part comprises the synagogue, while the lower western part houses an apartment for a rabbi. The main entrance is situated in the northern façade, to the east of the seam separating the synagogue from the apartment; it leads to a lobby fenced off from the prayer hall. In this lobby is a door to the apartment and stairs to the women’s gallery. The apartment is divided into an office and a bedroom in the north, and a dining room and a kitchen in the south. An additional entrance to the kitchen is designated from a separate lobby, located under the women’s gallery. The space below the stairs served as a kitchen pantry. The design shows one stove intended for heating and cooking in the rabbi’s apartments. Another stove in the prayer hall is shown within the octagonal bimah, with two symmetrical chimneys.
The actual building deviates from the design, although preserving its general concept. It is a log structure on a masonry socle. It has a rectangular plan, with its shorter sides facing west and east, 14.95 m long, 7.10 m wide and 7.43 m high above the foundation. The building is divided into a prayer hall in the east and the rabbi’s apartment in the west, as shown in Kralikas’ design. The main entrance in the northern façade is placed west of the seam and leads to a little lobby within the apartment. This lobby served both the synagogue and the dwelling.
There is an additional kitchen entrance in the western portion of the southern façade, as opposed to the original design. Since there was no separate entrance for women, they passed through the main entrance, and climbed steep stairs placed in the lobby. The synagogue proper included the prayer hall and the women’s gallery projecting into the hall in its rear. The Torah ark occupied the central part of the eastern wall, while the bimah was located in the middle of the hall. In contrast to the rectangular windows of the rabbi’s apartment, those of the prayer hall are round-headed. Their glazing bars form Stars of David, some of which still survive.
The synagogue and the apartment are covered with separate gable roofs of the same slope. The synagogue roof is a rafter construction, with tie beams serving as the ceiling beams as well. It is covered with asbestos sheets; the old alder shingles are preserved under the asbestos. The apartment has a joisted ceiling, independent from the roof.
sub-set tree: 
Cohen-Mushlin, Aliza, Sergey Kravtsov, Vladimir Levin, Giedrė Mickūnaitė, Jurgita Šiaučiūnaitė-Verbickienė (eds.), Synagogues in Lithuania. A Catalogue, 2 vols. (Vilnius: VIlnius Academy of Art Press, 2010-12)