The building of the lodge "To the Three Patriarchs"

The Lodge for the 3 Patriarchs is one of the branches of the oldest philanthropic organization B-Nay-B-rit , created in New York in 1843. The name implies the names of the three Old Testament patriarchs - Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Tilsit by the beginning of the 20th century had a significant Jewish community. She ordered the building for the box from the young, energetic and already famous architect Erich Mendelssohn. Erich Mendelssohn was born in the city of Allenstein of East Prussia (now Olsztyn, Poland) on March 21, 1887, studied at the Technical Higher School at the Faculty of Architecture.

In the late 1920s, despite the global crisis, Mendelssohn was not lacking in orders, because he solved the new tasks set for construction with the help of new design solutions, using which he uses the capabilities of new building materials: glass, steel and concrete. He builds a lot and is memorable. This is a hat factory in Luckenwald in the form of extravagant tulle, completely glazed department stores adjacent to the bend of the streets in Stuttgart and Chemnitz, a multi-purpose building (now the Schaubün Theater) in Berlin and others. And everywhere - a catchy, expressive, space-planning structure of an object is rigidly predetermined by functional and technological requirements. In Tilsit, in 1925-1926, he builds the Lodges to the Three Patriarchs building, which should fulfill conflicting functions - a public, club-elite, as well as a sacred structure.

Thus, Tilsit, one of the first cities in Europe, thanks to Mendelssohn, in 1925-1926 received a very innovative building of the Lodge, which surprisingly logically fit into the scale of the surrounding houses, the quarter and the whole city, respectively. In 1933, the Nazis confiscated the Jewish box to the three patriarchs and transferred the house to the city for public duties (subsequently for the Health Insurance Fund). After the Second World War, the building survived, however, it was partially rebuilt in Soviet times - the terrace of the second floor, which was built up to the plane of the facade of the roof, disappeared and was brought under a common cornice. But at the same time they saved the volume of the building, and the unique exterior finish with clinker bricks. Although the building is included in the list of newly discovered cultural monuments, the building does not have a commemorative plaque dedicated to Erich Mendelssohn. ^[1] .

Now in the building of the former lodge "To the Three Patriarchs" is a social institution - the Center for the Creativity of Children and Youth.

By order of the State Protection Service for Cultural Objects of the Kaliningrad Region dated January 18, 2010 No. 3, the building of the Jewish Lodge "To the Three Patriarchs" received the status of an identified cultural heritage object.

Mendelssohn himself describes his construction in Tilsit in the "Collection of Architect's Works", published in 1930 in Berlin, very sparingly: "A very limited corner land. Ground floor: main rooms - two-room hall . Mezzanine: game room and the gatekeeper's apartment. Upper floor: club rooms and lodges with a lounge. The missing lodge garden is replaced by an increased, unobservable front garden terrace, as well as a south terrace in front of the public areas. The bay window is not only an urban accent, its internal volume is intended for the music hall. Material: stone and iron. " Apparently, he believed that everything he wanted to say was expressed by architectural means.

In addition to Sovetsk, on the territory of Russia there is only one Mendelssohn’s only creation - the Red Banner textile factory in St. Petersburg. In 1926, Mendelssohn, the first of Western architects, was invited to Soviet Leningrad to learn from him industrial design. He designed the building of the power substation of the factory, the dynamic and expressive silhouette of which is associated with the "ship of the revolution."

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