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4 books match the query 'Synagogue architecture'
Beth Sholom Synagogue
Frank Lloyd Wright and Modern Religious ArchitectureJoseph M. Siry
University of Chicago Press, 2011
In a suburb just north of Philadelphia stands Beth Sholom Synagogue, Frank Lloyd Wright’s only synagogue and among his finest religious buildings. Designated a National Historic Landmark in 2007, Beth Sholom was one of Wright’s last completed projects, and for years it has been considered one of his greatest masterpieces.
But its full story has never been told. Beth Sholom Synagogue provides the first in-depth look at the synagogue’s conception and realization in relation to Wright’s other religious architecture. Beginning with his early career at Adler and Sullivan’s architectural firm in Chicago and his design for Unity Temple and ending with the larger works completed just before or soon after his death, Joseph M. Siry skillfully depicts Wright’s exploration of geometric forms and structural techniques in creating architecture for worshipping communities. Siry also examines Wright’s engagement with his clients, whose priorities stemmed from their denominational identity, and the effect this had on his designs—his client for Beth Sholom, Rabbi Mortimer Cohen, worked with Wright to anchor the building in the traditions of Judaism even as it symbolized the faith’s continuing life in postwar America. With each of his religious projects, Wright considered questions of social history and cultural identity as he advanced his program for an expressive, modern American architecture. His search to combine these agendas culminated in Beth Sholom, where the interplay of light, form, and space create a stunning and inspiring place of worship.
Filled with over three hundred illustrations, this remarkable book takes us deep inside the synagogue’s design, construction, and reception to bring us an illuminating portrait of the crowning achievement of this important aspect of Wright’s career.
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Houses of God
Region, Religion, and Architecture in the United StatesPeter W. Williams
University of Illinois Press, 1997
Houses of God is the first broad survey of American religious architecture, a cultural cross-country expedition that will benefit travelers as much as scholars. Beautifully illustrated with over 100 photographs — some by well-known photographers such as Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange — this handsome book provides a highly accessible look at how Americans shape their places of worship into multifaceted reflections of their culture, beliefs, and times.
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Louis I. Kahn’s Jewish Architecture
Mikveh Israel and the Midcentury American SynagogueSusan G. Solomon
University Press of New England, 2009
In 1961, famed architect Louis I. Kahn (1901–1974) received a commission to design a new synagogue. His client was one of the oldest Sephardic Orthodox congregations in the United States: Philadelphia’s Mikveh Israel. Due to the loss of financial backing, Kahn’s plans were never realized. Nevertheless, the haunting and imaginative schemes for Mikveh Israel remain among Kahn’s most revered designs. Susan G. Solomon uses Kahn’s designs for Mikveh Israel as a lens through which to examine the transformation of the American synagogue from 1955 to 1970. She shows how Kahn wrestled with issues that challenged postwar Jewish institutions and evaluates his creative attempts to bridge modernism and Judaism. She argues that Kahn provided a fresh paradigm for synagogues, one that offered innovations in planning, decoration, and the incorporation of light and nature into building design.
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Resplendent Synagogue
Architecture and Worship in an Eighteenth-Century Polish CommunityThomas C. Hubka
Brandeis University Press, 2022
This unique exploration of a lost religious and cultural artifact breathes new life into a forgotten but fascinating aspect of eighteenth-century Polish Jewry.
Thomas C. Hubka, an architectural historian, immersed himself in medieval and early modern Jewish history, religion, and culture to prepare for this remarkable study of the eighteenth-century Polish synagogue in the town of Gwozdziec, now in present-day Ukraine. Because the Gwozdziec Synagogue, like so many others, was destroyed by the Nazis, this book revives a spiritual community lost to history. Hubka selected the Gwozdziec Synagogue because of the completeness of its photographic and historical records. Graced with nearly two hundred historical photographs, architectural drawings, maps, diagrams, and color illustrations, Resplendent Synagogue vividly recreates the spiritual heart of a once-vibrant Jewish population. Hubka demonstrates that while the architectural exterior of the synagogue was largely the product of non-Jewish, regional influences, the interior design and elaborate wall-paintings signified a distinctly Jewish art form. The collaboration of Jewish and Gentile builders, craftsmen, and artists in the creation of this magnificent wooden structure attests to an eighteenth-century period of relative prosperity and communal well-being for the Jews of Gwozdziec. Part of a tradition that was later abandoned by Eastern European Jewish communities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this truly resplendent synagogue exemplified a high point in Jewish architectural art and religious painting.
Thomas C. Hubka, an architectural historian, immersed himself in medieval and early modern Jewish history, religion, and culture to prepare for this remarkable study of the eighteenth-century Polish synagogue in the town of Gwozdziec, now in present-day Ukraine. Because the Gwozdziec Synagogue, like so many others, was destroyed by the Nazis, this book revives a spiritual community lost to history. Hubka selected the Gwozdziec Synagogue because of the completeness of its photographic and historical records. Graced with nearly two hundred historical photographs, architectural drawings, maps, diagrams, and color illustrations, Resplendent Synagogue vividly recreates the spiritual heart of a once-vibrant Jewish population. Hubka demonstrates that while the architectural exterior of the synagogue was largely the product of non-Jewish, regional influences, the interior design and elaborate wall-paintings signified a distinctly Jewish art form. The collaboration of Jewish and Gentile builders, craftsmen, and artists in the creation of this magnificent wooden structure attests to an eighteenth-century period of relative prosperity and communal well-being for the Jews of Gwozdziec. Part of a tradition that was later abandoned by Eastern European Jewish communities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this truly resplendent synagogue exemplified a high point in Jewish architectural art and religious painting.
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