New Synagogue (Darmstadt)

The New Synagogue (Neue Synagoge) is a Reform Jewish congregation, synagogue, community centre, and Jewish museum (Jüdische Gemeinde), located in Darmstadt, in the state of Hessen, Germany.

History
Inaugurated on in 1988, the synagogue was built as part of a citizens’ initiative to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Kristallnacht. Known also as the ‘Holocaust Memorial Synagogue’, the architectural complex was designed to fulfil the needs of the city's Jewish population, who had been without a place of worship since the 1938 pogrom when Darmstadt's three synagogues were destroyed. The religious and cultural complex is located on the site of the city's former Gestapo headquarters.

The cultural complex is the site of the local museum of Jewish history and culture, Museum der Jüdischen Gemeinde Darmstadt.

Architecture
The building was designed by Alfred Jacoby in the Postmodernist style, and features stained glass windows designed by British architectural artist Brian Clarke.

The first "newly constructed synagogue in the postwar period to recall the traditional form of a central, domed building", the design marked the start of Jacoby's development of a distinct modern Jewish religious architectural vernacular.