The New Synagogue is a synagogue in Dresden, Germany.

The edifice was completed in

2001 and designed by architects Rena Wandel-Hoefer and Wolfgang Lorch. It was built
on the same location as the Semper Synagogue (1839�1840) designed by Gottfried
Semper, which was destroyed in 1938, during the Kristallnacht.

The boundary wall of the New Synagogue incorporates the last remaining fragments of
Semper's original building. The outer walls of the synagogue are built slightly off
plumb, intended by the architect to convey the feeling that the Jewish community
has always been slightly set off from the German city. The synagogue is also a
contrast to the city center with which it is juxtaposed. It is set on a slight rise
just at the edge of Dresden's baroque center, which was completely flattened by
allied bombing during the war. The center is being rebuilt with buildings whose
exteriors (and in the case of the more significant buildings, also interiors,
though not construction materials,) are precise replicas of the baroque royal city
that long made Dresden famous. The synagogue stands beside this careful
reproduction of the past, but it is not a replica of the historic Semper Synagogue.
It is a modernist statement that contrasts with its neighbors.

Inside, the sanctuary building is a cube (all service functions are located in the
companion building set at the other end of a stone plaza.) Within this cube is set
a square worship space, curtained off on all four sides by an enormous draping of
curtains made of chain-mesh in a golden metal, evoking an echo of the scale of the
Temple at Jerusalem.

The building was shortlisted by the jury for the European Union Prize for
Contemporary Architecture in 2003.[1]

On New Year's Eve (Silvester in German) in 2012, the mail box was broken at the
entrance to the synagogue in Dresden and a blasphemous inscription was spray-
painted on the external wall, which was interpreted as an anti-Semitic act.[2]