Pears Jewish Campus

Surrounded by heterogeneous architecture, the new school building with its organically curved form is a free-standing structure embedded in a green school garden with diverse open spaces for different uses, such as playgrounds and sports fields.

The two-story multi-purpose hall on the third floor can be used flexibly for sports activities but also for cultural events, such as religious celebrations, or for seminars and conferences.

The building’s amorphous curved shape was chosen in reference to the interior of the Chabad-Lubavitch Centre, where the contemporary additions to the rectangular, Neoclassical existing building were deliberately executed in the same organic formal language with rhythmic horizontal banding that appears in the structural form and façade of the new building.

Constructed in masonry and concrete, the building immediately catches the eye with its colorfulness and materiality.

This is where its name, “The Blue House’, comes from. In terms of form and style, the design of the school building again refers to the neighboring family and cultural center.

The color blue has had a special significance throughout the history of Judaism right up to the present day: reminiscent of the blue of the sky, this shade is the color of divine revelation.

The school’s main entrance is accessible from street level. Its walls are adorned with two kabbalistic trees of life – light installations by the Berlin artist Anna Nezhnaya.

The two-story entrance hall has a mirrored ceiling as a special design element. From the adjacent staircase, all floors are wheelchair-accessible via at least one lift.

The school rooms (classrooms, subject classrooms, assembly rooms, workshops) are used exclusively by the school; the group rooms, are exclusively by the daycare center.