Kingston was the first named official city in Jamaica, after Port Royal. It is home to many people of different races, classes, and creeds. Along with other British Caribbean colonies in the “new world”, Jamaica is home to who were fleeing Jews leaving racialization and persecution in Europe. They came in drones across the Atlantic towards the Americas. Voluntary migration, the holocaust, and the initial Inquisition meant that Synagogues would appear in the West Indies. As of today, the only remaining synagogue of at least four across the country meant that the Congregation must confront a declining culture by opening its doors to both new memberships, and to a more contemporary attending and visiting populace.
This idea was used to design a program geared towards developing a necessary addition, in the form of a tropical rendition of a cultural visitor center. The building is symbolic in its materiality, its texture, and its form, while simultaneously maintaining a connection to other similar spaces worldwide. The existing Byzantine style sees the repurposing of the missing pendentive and dome in this deconstructed and re-imagined proposal that is now an up spin to its "cousins" back in Europe.
