Opening March 31 2024: The visitors were particularly amazed at the wide range of Joseph Klarwein’s work: from prestigious buildings to churches, a town hall, but also detached houses, furniture and even funerary monuments. One visitor expressed surprise that he had never heard of an architect working on such designs. Some visitors who had already travelled to Israel were delighted to recognize buildings and details and to be able to deepen their knowledge about them. The photos of brick expressionist buildings attracted particular attention, as there are many points of reference in Kaliningrad. All visitors reacted with amazement to Klarwein’s sketches from Gerdauen. No one had ever heard of this phase of East Prussian reconstruction and the involvement of Jewish architects in it before. One visitor explained that the Gerdauen town hall was depicted in a sketch. This new exhibition will be visited by numerous museum guests until the summer months.
Joseph Klarwein architect (exhibition)
The beginning and end of the life of the architect Ossip (later: Joseph) Klarwein, born in Warsaw in 1893 and died in Jerusalem in 1970, do not sound unusual for the life of a Jew in the 20th century. What is extraordinary, however, is the wide range of his designs and buildings: It ranged from single-family homes with interiors, churches and town halls to shopping centers, train stations, award-winning funerary monuments and even the design for the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. For the first time, a section of the work of this modernist architect, who is relatively little known today, is being shown in a special exhibition at the New Synagogue Museum. It is a contribution to the anniversary program of the “Jews in East Prussia” association, which is celebrating its twentieth anniversary this year. With this exhibition, the exhibition organizers want to emphasize that their focus and field of research also includes people who were only briefly on the move as Jews in East Prussia. Opening March 31, 2024, 5 pm, Jewish Museum in the Kaliningrad Synagogue.