against all the odds and impracticalities that this logistically onerous method of traveling workshops caused, we held fast to a
commitment to allow the reconstruction process itself to illuminate history hands-on.
Over the years, hundreds of participants took part in the Handshouse Studio Wooden Synagogue Project. By extension, thousands more got a window into that journey in an award-winning documentary film, Raise the Roof (dir. Cary and Yari Wolinsky, 2015). And literally millions of people have now stood beneath the Gwoździec Synagogue Reconstruction at the POLIN Museum for History of Polish Jews in Warsaw.
Reconstruction as Repair
In 2019, as Notre-Dame burned, people worldwide were deeply aware of the loss they were witnessing. La Forêt (the Forest), the timber-frame truss system that held the roof of the cathedral was the quiet force literally
holding open and protecting the sacred space below. For many, what had been an invisible
part of this iconic cathedral – hidden beneath the lead roof and above the stone vaulted ceiling – la forêt revealed itself to the world as it burned. To traditional carpenters, artists,
architectural historians, the wooden structure
itself was a physical library of craft knowledge.
Built from a “forest” of more than a thousand trees — those oaks chronicled the cathedral’s centuries-old history and stories told in the structural forms of each unique truss, and the toolmarks left by so many unnamed carpenters. It was like watching a library burn.
Many members of the Handshouse community who had participated in past projects — particularly the Wooden Synagogue Project — had experienced how collaboratively investigating lost cultural heritage through hands-on reconstruction was deeply
meaningful. While the act of reconstructing something that was destroyed cannot ever fully restore the original, there is something healing about a community coming together, offering the gift of their attention to recreate something that was lost. In reconstructing a physical object with intention to honor how it was made, something more can be repaired.
When Notre-Dame burned on 15 April 2019, some key leaders of past Handshouse projects began calling, suggesting that our community create a project that could somehow transform this tragic loss into something positive. At the time, I had just stepped into the role as Handshouse Studio's first Executive Director, and the organization was embarking on a transition to expand its leadership While we were honored to be seen as having the capacity
to catalyze meaningful experiences through reconstruction projects, we hesitated, knowing
that Nortre-Dame de Paris was simply unlike our previous projects exploring objects that
Everyone is welcomed to the proverbial table in a way that invites everyone to feel ownership in the work, to make new discoveries, and to pursue the highest quality outcome. As Rick Brown so often proclaims, “Everyone contributes, and everyone learns.”
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Opposite Page Above:
Gwoździec Synagogue
Ceiling Install
Photograph Courtesy of:
Ttrillium Studios
Opposite Page Below:
Gwoździec Synagogue
Painting Workshp
Photograph Courtesy of:
Handshouse Studio