VIENNA – Work began to restore Vienna's oldest synagogue, the Stadttempel, on Friday. To mark the beginning of the project, renowned Austrian visual artist Gottfried Helnwein unveiled a presentation featuring photographs of children from the Vienna Jewish community's Zwi Perez Chajes School.

Presented in large format and displayed around the Stadttempel's interior, the photographs evoked a previous Helnwein exhibition, showcased in Cologne, Germany in 1988, to mark the 50th anniversary of Kristallnacht (commonly referred to in Germany as the November pogroms).

"Selektion – Ninth November Night's" four-meter-high photographs of children's faces were installed along a hundred-meter stretch of street, between Cologne's Ludwig modern art museum and its cathedral, in a seemingly endless line, as if the children were taking part in a Nazi selection.

Helnwein chose to photograph pupils from the Zwi Perez Chajes School for his most recent work in order to "look towards the future of the Jewish community in Vienna – the next generation for whom the restoration of the synagogue is intended." They are "the guarantee that Judaism will always be part of Austria and Vienna," he added.

The Stadttempel synagogue opened in April 1826. Building regulations at the time necessitated that non-Catholic places of worship be concealed from public view, and so it was situated behind a whitewashed five-story building on a cobblestoned street. Resembling a theater, the Stadttempel's oval-shaped hall has three tiers of seating, and a ceiling painted sky blue and decorated with stars to evoke the heavens.

Sandwiched as it is among residential buildings in a densely-constructed urban area, the Stadttempel was the only one of Vienna's then 26 synagogues to survive Kristallnacht. While additional synagogues have opened since the end of the World War II, the Stadttempel, which celebrates its 200th anniversary next year, remains a focal point of Jewish community life in Vienna. And it attracts some 12,000 visitors every year on organized tours.

"The Stadttempel is a landmark building for Vienna, the Jewish community and the entire Austrian republic," said Benjamin Nägele, secretary general of the Jewish community of Vienna.

The Stadttempel's last renovation took place in 1988. The current €10.5 million ($12.3 million) restorations will include mending cracked floors, crumbling masonry and chipped paint, installing new windows and improving wheelchair access, seating, acoustics and other features.

When construction began last week, wood paneling removed from synagogue's walls was handed over to Helnwein, who will use it as his canvas for a painting of one of the photographs in his exhibition. The painting will be auctioned off to help raise funds for the restoration. Costs are to be split between the Austrian federal government, the City of Vienna and the Vienna Jewish community.

The renovations come at a time when the EU has issued disciplinary measures against Austria due to its high budget deficit in 2024. In response, the federal government has cut spending including on the Jewish community, which will see its federal budget slashed by more than €850,000 ($1 million) over the next two years. Many of the cuts will impact personnel including at the Reporting Center for Antisemitism, which monitors antisemitic incidents in Austria. The center expects to operate on a slimmed down staff.

The first phase of the project – the renovations of the synagogue itself – is scheduled for completion by September 2026. Until then, prayers and other services will take place in the Jewish community center in the same complex. Phase two of the project – the renovations to said community center – will begin once phase one is completed, and are scheduled for completion in 2027.