ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the role of performativity in relation to ‘more-than-representational’ architecture and specifically the Pinkas Synagogue in Prague. Pinkas is a Holocaust memorial in that its interior walls are covered with the names of 77,297 Bohemian and Moravian Jews killed in the Holocaust. Consequently, Pinkas is not simply a building that contains a memorial but is a memorial itself, in that the synagogue has been deliberately redesigned to incorporate the names as part of its very architectural fabric. In discussing this, the chapter identifies two key ways in which Pinkas is performative, specifically in relation to the ‘more than representational’: the use of architecture in direct combination with modes of memorialisation (i.e. commemorating names) to create an affecting and immersive experience, and the conflation of building and memorial as a form of defamiliarisation. These examples underpin the article's wider conclusion: performativity is both essential and central to comprehending affective architecture.
