This former county center had an ancient Jewish community originating from Moravian immigrants. They established their communal presence behind the fortification walls, in the neighborhood that has today been fully merged with the former old town center. Their first synagogue was a nine-bay structure, demolished in 1912, when the current synagogue was constructed. The Jewish community held an architectural competition, to which the synagogue specialist, Lipót Baumhorn from Budapest, sent a project. The design was commissioned from an architect residing in Berlin, probably a native of Tren?ín. In his work he absorbed common trends towards reducing decoration while preserving monumental Classical forms. This was typical for contemporary German architecture, which included also some synagogues constructed prior to World War I. The domed synagogue is a mélange of the Byzantine and Art Nouveau styles, but the decoration pulls back in favor of clear distribution of masses, legible as rationally assembled basic forms. The sanctuary is a large hall with a dome on pendentives, supported by broad barrel vaulted arches along the sides, using advanced construction technology. The concrete women’s gallery on pillars runs around the three sides of the space. Originally, the sanctuary was colorfully decorated as visible in the historical images. Today, only some fragments, including the stained glass windows, blue dome decoration and the historical lamp are preserved. In the back part of the building, a small prayer hall, with a Holocaust memorial plaque listing the victims from Tren?ín, serves as an occasional place of worship to the tiny local Jewish community.
Tren?ín [Hungarian: Trencsén, German: Trentschin]
