Manchester Jewish Museum at night, photo by Joel Chester Fildes
We reopened on Friday 2 July 2021 with a new building, twice the size as before.
Designed by award-winning architects, Citizens Design Bureau, our contemporary two-storey extension includes a new gallery, learning studio & kitchen, collection store, shop and café. Our beloved Grade II* listed Synagogue has also been fully restored and refurbished to its original decorative scheme.
Our Corten clad façade lights up at night like a beacon on Cheetham Hill Road, with the light shining through the intricate patterns that mirror the designs by our Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue original architect Edward Salomons.
A new gallery, designed by All Things, showcases our collection based around the universal themes of journeys, communities and identities, sharing the stories of Jewish Manchester with the world.
Manchester Jewish Museum Gallery, Joel Chester Fildes, 13 June 2021
Our new museum will be a place to experience and explore how we are different, together. We make connections to make things better.
Our new museum welcomes and reflects the diversity of Manchester’s Jewish Communities and the museum’s local community, creating a space for sharing and connection.
We are a place to explore our differences, together.
CORE SUPPORTERS
Our Awards
Corten design, Manchester Jewish Museum, photo by Joel Chester Fildes 2021
Awards Won:
Our new building has won the following awards following our £6 million capital redevelopment supported by the National Heritage Lottery Fund:
British Construction Industry Awards 2021: Cultural & Leisure Project of the Year
British Construction Industry Awards 2021: Best Small Project (under £10 million)
Facade Awards UK 2021: Best Use of Rainscreen Using Specialist Metal, to Include (Zinc, Copper, Brass)
Shortlisted for:
AJ Retrofit Finalist: Cultural and Religious Buildings
Blueprint Awards: Best Public-Use Project with Public Funding
Spanish & Portuguese Synagogue, image by Daniel Jarvis
Our Grade II* listed Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue first opened in 1874, designed by Victorian architect Edward Salomons. Originally built to serve Manchester’s Sephardi Jewish communities, the Synagogue was designed and decorated to reflect the Spanish and Portuguese heritage of the communities that worshipped there. In 1984 the now former synagogue was converted into Manchester Jewish Museum, to preserve both the building and Manchester’s rich Jewish history.
The synagogue has been fully renovated and restored to serve as both a living artefact of a historic Sephardi place of worship and as a stunning cultural events space. We consider our synagogue to be the heart of our museum – a breathtakingly beautiful space in which you can take time to reflect and absorb the history that surrounds you. Oral histories throughout the synagogue share memories of the people who once attended the synagogue, filling the space with authentic Sephardi voices as they recall their experiences.
Find out more about this remarkable building’s history below.
Manchester Jewish Museum at dusk, Joel Chester Fildes, 2021
A more sustainable Museum
Our new museum is more sustainable and energy efficient thanks to the hard work of the structural engineers at Buro Happold. Despite doubling in size, we have reduced our overall energy use and carbon impact by 20% so that our museum may be preserved and enjoyed by future generations.
Most significant in energy reduction is the retention and re-use of the synagogue. To improve the energy efficiency of the building a high performance insulation quilt has been introduced into the old roof and the old Victorian sunburners in the ceiling have been repurposed as natural ventilation extracts and old radiators removed and replaced by heating elements hidden beneath the pews.
Read our blog to find out more about our sustainable building developments.
As we look ahead to our reopening later this year, architect Katy Marks from Citizens Design Bureau speaks to Architect’s Journal about her inspiration and process for creating a museum that reflects the diversity of Manchester’s Jewish communities and creates a space for sharing and connection.
“Great care has been taken to reflect the diversity of Jewish communities in Manchester: diversity of religious practice, language, wealth and politics. There is huge political, social and religious diversity in Manchester and this museum is exciting in that it doesn’t speak with one voice or represent a definitive version of a singular Jewish community. The museum will invite conversations on migration, refugees and being an outsider in a new place. The architecture is designed explicitly to reflect that.” Katy Marks, Citizens Design Bureau
You may have spotted the rust-coloured façade of our new museum extension if you’ve driven down Cheetham Hill Road recently, but what is it?
The answer is Corten (also called COR-TEN, aka ‘weathered steel’). This beautiful copper-coloured material is the corrosion resistant cladding on our new extension, etched with intricate and ornate patterns (more information on our designs and their inspiration to come). Designed by our architects, Citizens Design Bureau, the corten beautifully compliments the slate roofing and red brick of our original 1874 synagogue building.
Read more about corten, including our top 5 other corten buildings in Manchester.
Following a £6 million redevelopment our new museum includes a brand-new purpose built gallery to display our collection. Our gallery is presented in three themes:
Journeys
Communities
Identities.
All the stories told on gallery are Jewish but by framing them within these universal themes they hopefully feel relevant to all of our audiences, Jewish and non-Jewish.
Synagogue stained Glass window Joel Chester Fildes 2021Synagogue stained Glass window Joel Chester Fildes 2021
Restoring our synagogue windows
Restoring Manchester’s oldest surviving synagogue is no mean feat.
Built in 1874, our synagogue is now a Grade II* listed building and has been fully restored as part of our multi-million pound redevelopment. Reopening this summer, the museum’s synagogue has been described as a “jewel” by architectural historians.
One of the most striking features of our synagogue is its beautiful stained glass windows. We spoke to our stained glass restoration expert Stephen Evans from Recclesia Ltd. to understand what the challenges of restoring such a historic building are, and what you should look out for when you visit this summer.
