Jewish Taiwan Cultural Association

The concept of the design was inspired by Durer's oil painting, Praying Hands. The line of the clasped hands revealing the arch is our design's inspiration.

The Jewish Taiwan Cultural Association is Taiwan's first synagogue. The core concept of each spatial unit and its artistic details are all based on the axis of suspended curvatures: parabolic arches and the shape of the lines of suspension arches. Each individual piece of the arch is made up of seemingly random but actually quite regular elements formed by flips.

The room's entrance reveals a stunning gallery, like the introduction to a moving song. The oval light band wraps around the ceiling's parabola, making graceful arc waves that track the beams' movements. Strings of tribal glazed lamps hang from various locations. The exquisite glazing craftsmanship transforms the symbolic chalice and six-pointed star at the bottom of the gallery into a vibrant spiritual end wall. A Kosher restaurant, a baptistry, a high-ceilinged auditorium, a chronological gallery, a nursery, a terrace plaza and a sanctuary are just a few of the important functional units made possible by the promenade's connection to the front and back vertical staircases.

The top floor's "sanctuary" is a representation of the sun's brilliant golden hue. The baptistry, in keeping with the theme of "the light of the sky and the shadow of the jade," is decorated in the same noble gilt color. The auditorium has high ceilings and an exclusive suspension arches ribbed dome with a blue ombre carpet on the floor that makes both the top and bottom look like the sky, with watery blue extending far beyond the horizon. The space is adorned with the Seven Candlesticks, the Wailing Wall, the Tree of Life, Old Testament stories and classic Jewish civilization phrases in dark and light blue, in addition to the previously mentioned six-pointed star and chalice motifs. The abode of God, supreme in holiness and splendor, is meticulously fashioned.