It’s been over 2 months since we last wrote and the Prayer House building is going up fast (!) We’ve had some wonderful weather, and for some reason here in Poland, it seems to like raining on weekends and during the night, but stays hot and sunny during the week. Not much fun if you like to have sunshine on your weekends… but it’s been great for the builders!

If the weather continues like this, there’s a real possibility that the roof will be finished by the beginning of November, let’s see. So far progress has been better than planned.

Yesterday was a key milestone. I’m not sure if we mentioned it before, but the prayer room, which is almost half of the top floor overlooking Auschwitz-Birkenau, does not have a flat ceiling. This is because we want people to have the freedom to wave banners in the prayer room. So we designed the prayer room with a large open space that goes up into the apex of the roof. The ceiling starts on opposite walls, about 1.5 metres from the floor, and rises up to meet in the middle, about 5.3 metres from the floor. So if you’re someone who likes to worship with banners – you’ll definitely have the freedom to do that in the prayer room!  

Going back to yesterday’s milestone… Since there are no joists (these are horizontal wooden beams that support the roof and provide the framework for a ceiling) in the prayer room, the architect had to find an alternative way to support the roof. He decided to use 2 steel beams, each weighing approximately 1.7 tons, that run along the length of the building. You’ll see what these look like in the photos later. Yesterday, after almost 3 weeks of continuous welding, the crane arrived and put the steel beams in place. Each beam is made up of 2 sections that meet on the main structural wall in the middle of the building, and these are now being welded together in situ.  

Ok, now for some photos and a video – all taken yesterday.