Sara returned from travels in Europe and shared some of the architectural inspirations she found there. A specific area of her interest involved the traditional synagogue forms of London, as she visited and documented these sites. We discussed the specificity of Jewish architecture to the rituals practiced in the synagogue and the way in which the Synagogue architecture relates to the city through its external forms. We discussed the power of expressing continuity of religion through a shared spatial arrangement as a universal way to relate, globally, despite national or language barriers.

She also walked through Peter Eisenmans’ holocaust memorial in Berlin. The discussion centered on the power of the memorial in relation to the simplicity of the concept. Variations on spatial relationships to the stone markers through a changing sectional relationship with the ground plane create an array of experiences, from understanding the monument as a whole to the specific subjective experiences of being in particular areas.