USA: Modern Orthodox / Orthodox Modernism I, Beth David in Binghamton, NY

Binghamton, NY. Beth David. Exterior. It was wet morning, and the concrete holds the dampness. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

Binghamton, NY. Beth David. Front elevation drawing. image: Recent American Synagogue (NY: The Jewish Museum, 1963).  

Binghamton, NY. Beth David. One of two concrete columns at entrance to front courtyard. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

USA: Modern Orthodox / Orthodox Modernism I: 
Beth David in Binghamton, NY, Designed by Werner Seligmann
by Samuel D. Gruber

When I stayed over in the Binghamton, New York, the other week, I had an opportunity to attend early morning services at the Orthodox Congregation Beth David.  This small building has long been known by religious architecture cognoscenti as a masterwork of modern design; an example of Orthodox Modernism for the Modern Orthodox. Designed as a light box perched atop a heavy base; the small building is full of big ideas. In its creation of a welcoming unified space Beth David is a forerunner of the many small sanctuaries built since the 1990s that strive for "intimacy" and to create "community." Since it was designed for a small Orthodox congregation the sanctuary dimensions hardly exceed those used for chapels at the some of the large suburban synagogues also built in the 1960s.

Binghamton, NY. Beth David. Sanctuary. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

 Binghamton, NY. Beth David. Sanctuary, view of Ark and bimah. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

 

Binghamton, NY. Beth David. Plans: Recent American Synagogue Architecture (NY: The Jewish Museum, 1963).

The small building, set on an urban corner, was designed by Werner Seligmann and dedicated in February, 1964, at the time when Seligmann was teaching architecture at Cornell University.  The budget was less than $200,000 and the building lot is only 80 x 120 feet. Seligmann managed to pack a lot into this space and to accommodate the needs an Orthodox congregation, including two kitchens, mikvah, and places for congregants to store books and tallit, and also a well-designed hand washing station near the social hall.

Seligmann would later design the synagogue in nearby Cortland, New York, where he lived, and go on to be Dean of the School of Architecture at Syracuse University (where I knew him slightly in his later years). The scale of Beth David fits in the neighborhood of late 19th and early 20th-century wood frame houses, but the style is distinct. Constructed mostly of poured concrete and concrete block (polished on the inside) Beth David is a superb example of how urban contextualism does not require stylistic imitation, but rather a sympathy for scale and massing. 

As Seligmann's colleague Bruce Coleman has pointed out, Beth David has roots in the work of both Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright. The building was, still unfinished, selected for inclusion in the seminal 1963 Jewish Museum exhibition on new synagogue design curated by Richard Meier. Seligmann and Beth David also won a Progressive Architecture citation for religious architecture that same year. In his remarks about the project included in the exhibition catalog, Seligmann quoted Corbusier on form. The sanctuary design, however, especially recalls Wright's work (Unity Temple and even some early house designs. Susan Solomon, in her book Louis I. Kahn's Jewish Architecture (Walthan, Ma: Brandeis univ Press, 2009), offers an enthusiastic appreciation of Beth David and also links it to Louis Kahn's designs. 

Seligmann wrote:  

"...Hierarchy was quite clearly a problem. There was not enough room on the site to organize the whole axially with the sanctuary as the center, but it was possible to contrast the sanctuary to the other functions. Isolation is a powerful way to create hierarchical significance. This was all possible in the design of the Beth David Synagogue by moving the sanctuary to the roof top. ...By form I do not refer to shape, but to the ideas organizing it, just as we talk of form in poetry or music. Form in this sense is a matter of the mind, it is a way in which knowledge is made manifest. Architecture speaks primarily through its form and, as Le Corbusier says, "it will strike a chord in us, when form has been sparked by poetic emotion. Passion creates drama out of inert stone."

Interestingly, Seligmann makes no reference to the Talmudic recommendation that synagogues be located high up, nor does he refer to the tradition of upper story sanctuaries in Germany, his own country of origin (which he may not have know) and Italy (which he probably did). Nonetheless, the experience of reaching the sanctuary is one of "going up" (aliyah).

 

Binghamton, NY. Beth David. Plans. Sections. Images: Recent American Synagogue Architecture (NY: The Jewish Museum, 1963).

The upper level is reached from either external steps to the roof, or more regularly from an interior stair lit by a skylight. Both lead to a glass faced vestibule that opens onto the roof and into the sanctuary. Seligmann planned a roof garden at this level, but like him planned garden outside the Cortland synagogue, this was never implemented. Consequently, at both buildings the architects interlined dialog between planned space and natural forms, never got started. It was left for other architects in the 1960s to carry this forward. The flat roof serves as both a podium and a frame for the central elevated sanctuary space. Practically, however, the large expanse of flat roof (which I got to know well, since got locked out there!) has caused problems over the years as do most 1960s flat roofs in the snow, ice and water filled Birmingham weather.
 

Binghamton, NY. Beth David. Stair from front courtyard to roof. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

Binghamton, NY. Beth David. View into vestibule and sanctuary from roof. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

 Binghamton, NY. Beth David. View from sanctuary to roof and neighboring houses. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

The morning was overcast when I visited, but still the sanctuary glowed with light which entered form every side.  The sanctuary reminds me of the bridge of ship, one can look out all sides. For the separation of men and women Seligmann and the congregation eschewed the use of a gallery (which would have made the building that much higher). Instead the women's seating in included in the broad space of the sanctuary, but set slightly higher and to the side, and they face inward.

Binghamton, NY. Beth David. View to bimah. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

 
Binghamton, NY. Beth David. Bimah. Some new rails have been added for the safety of the congregation's aging members. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

Binghamton, NY. Beth David. View to Ark showing both women's and men's seating. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

A more common version of this plan, a favorite of mine for Orthodox shuls, was used very effectively in the early 20th century at Philadelphia's Mikveh Israel designed by Tachau and Pilcher and dedicated in 1909.  More contemporary with Seligmann's work is the Sons of Israel Synagogue in Lakewood, New Jersey, designed by Davis, Brody and Wisniewski and also included in the Jewish Museum exhibit. Seligmann would surely have known the early design from Rachel Wischnitzer's 1955 book Synagogue Architecture in the United States, and he was probably aware of the the Lakewood synagogue, too. Both these plans, however, have all the men's seating facing center as in traditional Sephardi and early American synagogue designs. Seligmann and the Beth David Congregation mix things up a bit; they use this plan and have facing seats near the bimah, but behind are seats facing front in a more common Ashkenazi fashion.Significantly, there is no mechitza in front of the women's seating and today it is practice to bring the Torah to the women when it is carried throughout the sanctuary.

 

Binghamton, NY. Beth David. Sanctuary. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

 

Philadelphia, PA. Former Mikveh Israel. Tachau & Pilcher, archs. (1909). View of sanctuary showing raised women's seating on the sides. Photo: R. Wischnitzer, Synagogue Architecture in the United States (Philadelphia: JPS, 1955).

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Philadelphia, PA. Former Mikveh Israel. Tachau & Pilcher, archs. (1909). Plan: R. Wischnitzer, Synagogue Architecture in the United States (Philadelphia: JPS, 1955).

 
Lakewood, NJ. Congregation Sons of Israel. Davis, Brody, Wisniewski, archs. Women's seating is off the edges of the photo behind a mechitza. Photo: Recent American Synagogue Architecture (NY: Jewish Museum, 1963)

The ground floor consists of a central flowing social area, from which other functional space open. There is a hallway to the small daily chapel on the corner of the lot, and to classrooms.  A curved stair leads to the second floor.

Binghamton, NY. Beth David. Ground floor flexible space social area. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

Binghamton, NY. Beth David. Stair to second floor. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

 

Binghamton, NY. Beth David. View across roof with added beams for sukkah and the top part of the daily chapel. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

Probably the most used space at Beth David is the small tall chapel set on the corner of the lot, where as a block-like tower it guards the intersection of the two streets. This space is used for daily prayers. It incorporates the Ark and a stained glass window of lions flanking an open book with the Ten Commandments, which were transferred from the congregation's previous home. The ceiling seems to float on a frame of natural light which filters into the space. The reader's table is a permanent fixture made of a cast column of concrete.  Similar but taller columns flank the main entrance to the synagogue courtyard.

Binghamton, NY. Beth David. Exterior of daily chapel on corner.  Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

Binghamton, NY. Beth David. Chapel, interior. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

Binghamton, NY. Beth David. Chapel, interior. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

Binghamton, NY. Beth David. Chapel, reader's table. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

Modest changes over the decades accommodate the needs of an aging congregation (shallow front steps changed to ramp, new horizontal rails on the bimah), and a few additions that are less sympathetic (air conditioning fixtures on the roof, and an ornate front door at odds with the modern style). In addition, wood beams have been placed across the front courtyard to allow the seasonal erection of a sukkah.Despite these changes, the building conveys most of the spatial and visual experience as intended and the small congregation appears to maintain much of its original spirit, too.

You can read the history of the congregation here.  

USA: Syracuse University Library has acquired the personal papers of architect Morris Lapidus

Miami Beach, Fl. Temple Menorah, 1962. Morris Lapidus, arch. From D. Desilets, Morris Lapidus: The Architecture of Joy (New York: Rizzoli, 2010), 167. This photo is now part of the Lapidus Collection at Syracuse University.

USA: Syracuse University Library has acquired the personal papers of architect Morris Lapidus.

Syracuse University Library has acquired the personal papers of the flamboyant and trend-setting architect Morris Lapidus (1902-2001). Although clearly an architectural original, and a man who worked and pleased a varied clientele, Lapidus can also has serious credentials as a Jewish architect. He designed several synagogues, and his Miami architecture was especially in tune with a unique phase of American Jewish leisure life.

The Lapidus papers join other collections at the Syracuse University Library Special Collections and Research Center (SCRC) of the other leading modern American architects who also happened to design synagogues, including Marcel Breuer, Pietro Belluschi, Minoru Yamasaki and Werner Seligmann.

Pikesville, MD. Temple Beth Tfiloh, 1961. Morris Lapidus, arch. From D. Desilets, Morris Lapidus: The Architecture of Joy (New York: Rizzoli, 2010), 167.

Though his interior design and hotels are better known, Lapidus's synagogues deserve study, if only to see have they compare with contemporary work. His Temple Menorah in Miami Beach, for instance, bears at least a superficial resemblance to Gropius and Leavitt's Oheb Shalom in Baltimore, built just about the same time. I'm sorry I did not include any of Lapidus's work when I published my American Synagogues (Rizzoli) book in 2003.

Baltimore, MD. Oheb Shalom. Walter Gropius and Sheldon Leavitt, architects. Photo: Paul Rocheleau (2002).

Miami Beach, Fl. Temple Menorah, 1962. Morris Lapidus, arch. Photo: Julian H. Preisler.

According to the release from the Syracuse University Library:

Lapidus, who died in 2001, is perhaps best known for hotels like the Fontainebleau, Americana, and Eden Roc in Miami Beach, Fla., buildings which embodied the growth of leisure in American life during the 1950s and 1960s. The Fontainebleau has served as a backdrop for variety of iconic scenes in American film, including the James Bond thriller "Goldfinger" (1964). Most of Lapidus' buildings exhibited a mélange of historical styles--French provincial, Italian and Baroque--and anticipated the post-modernism of later architects.

Lapidus was born in Odessa, Russia, in 1902, but his family immigrated to the United States soon thereafter. As a wide-eyed youth, he marveled at the splendor of Coney Island and he would later impart a similar spirit of excess to his work as an architect. That spirit would place him at odds with his function-minded modernist peers. However, contrary to the editor's choice of title for his 1996 autobiography, "Too Much is Never Enough," Lapidus was interested less in hedonism than he was in a "quest for emotion and motion in architecture."

Frustrated by his sometimes antagonistic relationship with the architectural establishment, Lapidus destroyed many of his firm's records when he retired in 1984. However, he retained a core collection of especially valuable papers that he entrusted to his last collaborator and confidant, architect Deborah Desilets. The archive includes a large collection of photographs dating to the 1920s, conceptual drawings, manuscript drafts of his written works and correspondence with his long-time friend, mystery writer Ellery Queen.

Desilets approached Syracuse, which has held a small Lapidus collection since 1967, and a gift of the material was finalized in December. Speaking on her decision to place the archive with Syracuse, Desilets says, "The archive is an extremely important missing link in the discourse on Lapidus' influence on 20th-century architecture. I am thrilled to place it in such a distinguished research institution where it will be available for use by generations of students and scholars."

In Syracuse's Special Collections Research Center, the Lapidus archive will reside in one of the most important mid-century modern collections in the country. Among the other architects represented are Marcel Breuer, William Lescaze and Richard Neutra, as well as designers like Russel Wright and Walter Dorwin Teague.

Syracuse School of Architecture faculty member Jon Yoder offered this assessment of the Lapidus archive's value for teaching and research: "The recent proliferation of architect-designed boutique hotels, coupled with the pervasive disciplinary focus on architectural effects suggests that Lapidus was indeed one of the most influential architects of the 20th century. This acquisition of his personal archive comes as welcome news to designers and scholars who are finally beginning to reassess the lavish contributions of this much-maligned architect across a surprisingly broad spectrum of design disciplines."

For more information, contact Sean Quimby, senior director of Special Collections, at 315-443-9759 or smquimby@syr.edu.

Exhibition and Catalogue: Architect Bertrand Goldberg

Chicago, IL. Marina City. Bertrand Goldberg, architect. In the forefront you can see the statue of Hyam Solomon. Photo: Samuel Gruber

FIRST COMPREHENSIVE RETROSPECTIVE OF ARCHITECT
BERTRAND GOLDBERG TO OPEN AT THE ART INSTITUTE

I am pleased to learn of a major retrospective of the architecture of Bertrand Goldberg in Chicago this fall. Goldberg was one of America's most innovative architects of the 20th century, and one of the few full-blooded pre-WW II Jewish modernists born in the United States. (Louis Kahn, for example, a very different sort of architect was born in Estonia).

The following text courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago, which holds the Goldberg archives.)

Bertrand Goldberg: Architecture of Invention Features More Than 100 Works With Companion Photography Exhibition Inside Marina City

On View Only in Chicago September 17, 2011-January 15, 2012

The Art Institute of Chicago has organized a landmark exhibition exploring the work of Bertrand Goldberg (1913-1997), one of the most innovative modern American architects. On view from September 17, 2011, through January 15, 2012, in the Modern Wing's Architecture and Design Galleries (283-285), Bertrand Goldberg: Architecture of Invention is the first comprehensive retrospective of the architect's work, featuring more than 100 original drawings, models, and photographs, as well as significant examples of his rarely-shown graphic and furniture design. Long recognized for his seminal contributions to the built environment of Chicago, most notably his groundbreaking design for Marina City (1959-67), this exhibition showcases his progressive vision, dramatic architectural forms, and inventive engineering with a wide range of built and experimental projects. As a tribute to Goldberg's career, the Art Institute has specially commissioned a stunning installation by John Ronan Architects and graphic design firm Studio Blue.

Born in 1913 in Chicago, Goldberg began studying architecture in 1930 at Harvard College. In 1932, he moved to Germany to take courses at the Bauhaus in Dessau, before relocating to Berlin to apprentice in the office of architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. After his return to the United States in 1933, Goldberg worked for Chicago modernist George Fred Keck while studying engineering at the Armour Institute of Technology (now the Illinois Institute of Technology). Goldberg established his own firm in 1937 with a range of innovative work in housing and industrial design before devoting his practice to large-scale urban projects. His architectural achievements were recognized with numerous professional awards: in 1966, Goldberg was elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects, and in 1985 he was awarded the Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. During his lifetime, his work served as a touchstone for a generation of international architects and critics including Reyner Banham, the Japanese Metabolist group, and members of the British architectural collective, Archigram. Today, Goldberg's pioneering cross-disciplinary approach resonates with the diverse practices of contemporary architects and designers.

Bertrand Goldberg: Architecture of Invention draws on the important holdings of the Art Institute's Bertrand Goldberg Collection and Archive, which includes more than 30,000 drawings and models spanning the architect's career from the 1930s to the 1990s. This rich archival collection was given to the Art Institute in 2002 by the Goldberg family, and includes such seminal projects as Marina City, River City (1972-89), and the Health Sciences Center in Stony Brook, New York (1965-76). This work is complemented by early student Bauhaus drawings borrowed from the Harvard Art Museums and furniture from the Goldberg family's private collection, which makes its public debut in this exhibition.

The exhibition is organized thematically, demonstrating how Goldberg's work mirrored the changing priorities of American culture at large, beginning with his early interest in prefabrication and low-cost housing, his projects for middle class leisure culture in the 1950s, his expanded engagement with new cultural programs throughout the 1960s, and the large-scale projects for hospitals and urban planning in his later practice. Many of Goldberg's early projects experimented with new materials and manufacturing processes, including prefabricated plywood structures and designs for mobile medical facilities for the United States government during World War II. As his work grew in scale, Goldberg explored new building technologies to realize his distinctive designs, from the daring structures of the Marina City towers and Raymond Hilliard Center (1963-66), to the groundbreaking cantilever of his Prentice Women's Hospital (1969-74). He worked tirelessly to redefine conventional building and urban typologies and pioneered some of the first mixed-use developments in the United States at a time when American cities were facing serious problems of population and commercial development. The university and hospital buildings of his mature career demonstrate his interest in improving the quality of education and health care through new spatial configurations designed to function as close-knit "villages" promoting healing and social exchange.

From his experimental roots at the Bauhaus to his visionary designs for urbanism, Bertrand Goldberg's 50-year-long career reflects a remarkable engagement with issues central to his time developed through a unique approach to structure and form that defied architectural convention. His steadfast commitment to innovation across a multitude of disciplines, including architecture, urban planning, and graphic and industrial design, mirrors the fluid exchange that occurs between these fields today, as practitioners venture beyond the confines of their specializations to provide solutions that transform our social and built environment.

Bertrand Goldberg: Architecture of Invention is accompanied by a photography exhibition, Inside Marina City: A Project by Iker Gil and Andreas E.G. Larson . In this exhibition, visitors are offered the rare opportunity to see inside the apartments of Marina City with more than 30 images that explore the relationship between Goldberg's rigorous modular framework for the building and the informal development of these interior spaces by residents throughout its history. Bertrand Goldberg: Architecture of Invention is accompanied by a handsome, fully illustrated, 192-page catalogue designed by Studio Blue. The book, edited by Zoë Ryan, Chair and John H. Bryan Curator of Architecture and Design at the Art Institute of Chicago, features 140 color and 75 black-and-white illustrations, and scholarly essays written by Ryan; Alison Fisher, the Harold and Margot Schiff Assistant Curator of Architecture at the Art Institute; Elizabeth Smith, Executive Director, Curatorial Affairs at the Art Gallery of Ontario; and Sarah Whiting, dean of the Rice University School of Architecture. The catalogue, published by the Art Institute and distributed by Yale University Press, will be available beginning October 3, 2011, at the Art Institute's Museum Shop for $60. Bertrand Goldberg: Architecture of Invention is organized by the Art Institute of Chicago and curated by Zoë Ryan, Chair and John H. Bryan Curator of Architecture and Design, and Alison Fisher, the Harold and Margot Schiff Assistant Curator of Architecture, with guest curator Elizabeth Smith, Executive Director, Curatorial Affairs, Art Gallery of Ontario. The exhibition and its publication are made possible by the generous support of the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, the Albert Pick, Jr. Fund, the Architecture & Design Society at the Art Institute of Chicago, and by anonymous donations. Additional support is provided by the Exhibitions Trust: Goldman Sachs, Kenneth and Anne Griffin, Thomas and Margot Pritzker, the Earl and Brenda Shapiro Foundation, Donna and Howard Stone, and Melinda and Paul Sullivan. Inside Marina City is made possible by the generous support of the Architecture & Design Society. Additional sponsorship is provided by The Print Lab. MUSEUM HOURS 10:30 am-5:00 pm Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday 10:30 am-8:00 pm Thursday 10:30 am-5:00 pm Saturday, Sunday Museum free to Illinois residents on first and second Wednesdays of every month. Closed Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and New Year's Day. ADMISSION Adults $18.00 Includes all special exhibitions Children 14 and over, students, and seniors $12.00 Includes all special exhibitions Chicago residents receive a $2.00 discount with proof of residency Children under 14 always free Members always free City of Chicago residents with Chicago Public Library cards can borrow a "Museum Passport" card from any library branch for free general admission to the nine members of Museums in the Park, including the Art Institute of Chicago

Poland: New Booklet About Lancut

Lancut,Poland. Above: Synagogue (restored), Below: Lubomirska/Patocki Palace near the synagogue. Photos: Samuel D. Gruber (1993)

In November 2010 the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland released the English language version of the booklet 'Chassidic Route. Lancut', part of the organization's ongoing series of publications documenting the properties under its care, and the histories associated with those places. Together these sites have been linked as the Chassidic Route project, though often the Jewish history of specific places predates the rise and success of Hasidism, and includes non-Hasidic 18th-20th century components. Many of these places still have imposing remains of central synagogues - usually used by the entire community. The smaller shtibls and shuls where often the daily activity of Hasidic religious communities took place are long gone.

So far the Foundation has published brochures about Chelm, Jaroslaw, Krasnik, Lesko, Lezajsk, Ropczyce, Rymanow, Sanok, Ustrzyki Dolne and Zamosc. They are all available in Polish and in English in online versions and hard print copies. Online versions can be downloaded from the "About Us" and "Heritage" sections, and can also be found at POLIN - Polish Jews Heritage web portal at www.polin.org.pl.

Lancut is one of the most impressive remaining Polish synagogues and it is also one of the best preserved, having successfully survived demolition attempts by both Nazis and Communists. The survival of the building is due to the foresight and courage of just a few individuals. The interior is remarkable for its fine central bimah (of the bimah-support" type), its womens' gallery above the entrance and opposite the Ark wall, and its exceptional and much discussed symbolic painted wall decoration.

After the fall of Communism restoration and care for the building became more popular. I first visited the synagogue in 1990, and I post some previously unpublished photos of the restoration of the building underway at that time.

Lancut, Poland. Synagogue under restoration. photos: Samuel D. Gruber (1990)

Like many important Jewish sites the synagogue was recognized as an architectural and artistic site of historic significance in the late 19th century, and was first restored in 1896 and again in 1909-10. During German occupation of Poland, the Germans attempted to set the synagogue on fire. The thick masonry wall survived, but the wooden women’s gallery, window frames and interior furnishings were destroyed. The fire was put out following the intercession of the local noble Alfred Antoni Potocki, who made an appeal to the German authorities. After the liquidation of the Łańcut ghetto, the Nazis turned the synagogue into a grain storehouse, and it was used as a warehouse until 1956 when the Communist-era the Town National Council moved to demolish the building.

This plan was courageously protested by Dr Władysław Balicki, who forced the council to withdraw its decision. Dr Balicki, along with the head of the Cultural Department of the National Council in Rzeszów, Jan Mincal, then allocated a fairly large sum of money for the renovation of the synagogue and organized an exhibition of Judaica inside it, a rare occurrence in Poland at that time. From 1973 on the synagogue was maintained by the Łańcut Castle Museum.

The building underwent major renovations in the 1980s and 1990s. Since 2009, it has been the property of the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland.

There are also two Jewish cemeteries in Łańcut: the old and the new. The first reference to the old cemetery, located in today’s Moniuszki St, dates back to 1671, but early all matzevot were removed and destroyed by the Germans during World War II. The cemetery is still however visited by Jews from all over the world, who pay tribute at the ohelot of Tzadik Naft ali Tzvi Horowitz of Ropczyce and Tzadik Eleazar Shapiro.

The new cemetery was founded around 1860 in today’s Traugutta St. During the war, all gravestones were removed from it by the Germans. A memorial plaque commemorating the site of the execution of Łańcut Jews in 1941-44 is installed on the site. There is also a surviving mikvah at Ottona z Pilczy St, built in 1908-10.

Additional information about the Jewish history of Lancut can be found in the booklet.

USA: Should We Call Classicism in Georgia Georgian?

USA: Should We Call Classicism in Georgia Georgian?
by Samuel D. Gruber

Atlanta, Georgia. Hebrew Benevolent Congregation. W. F. Denny, architect (1902). From postcard.

Architectural historian Richard Funderburke has referred me to the Macon Georgia Living history map webpage for some fine photos of Congregation Beth Israel in Macon, Georgia. Richard is a font of knowledge about Georgia architecture, and I've referred to his work elsewhere on this blog.

I've been to Savannah, but never to Macon and a score of other towns that have or had Jewish communities. Sometime I hope to afford the time and money to make my own march through Georgia and adjacent southern states to more fully investigate the rich Jewish and architectural history of that region.

At present, I'm particularly interested in the persistence of classicism, which in the south has its own particular overlapping and intersecting levels of meaning. Classicism was the style of the elite in the ante-bellum period and we are fortunate to have Beth Elohim in Charleston - literally a touchstone building for American Reform Judaism - as a reminder of how Jews were close to that elite in aspirations if not always in social status. They were not Christians, but they were white. Therefore the widespread use of Greek and Roman classicism beginning around 1900 is only due in part to national trends, since it is also steeped in a strong regional affinity and sense of history. One has to remember that it was a Jew - Commodore Uriah Levy - who undertook to preserve the Jeffersonian (and Palladian) appearance of Monticello. The Palladian form of Monticello - which derives from Rome's Pantheon and is a seen is many types of American civic architecture plays a role in Southern synagogue design, too. I discuss this in brief - but not to the extent that it deserves - in a new article "Arnold W. Brunner and the new classical synagogue in America" that will appear shortly in Jewish History.

While the famed Touro Synagogue at Newport, designed by colonial-era architect Peter Harrison and completed in 1763 is typically described as of "the Georgian Style," since it was erected during the English Georgian period, in this article I touch upon a very different Georgian classicism - that found in Atlanta and Macon a century ago.Meridian, Mississippi. Temple Beth Israel (1905, demolished 1964). From postcard.

Alexandria, Louisiana. Gemiluth Chassodim (1908, destroyed by fire 1956)

In recognition of Richard's link about Macon, I include a few paragraphs from that article - though they are out of their full context, and without their full accompanying end notes.

Already in 1902, two Roman temple style synagogues were erected in Georgia. In Atlanta, the Hebrew Benevolent Congregation dedicated on September 12, 1902, a large new Roman temple style home, designed by Louisville-born W. F. Denny (1875 - 1905), at the corner of South Pryor and Richardson Streets. The Atlanta Constitution called this structure “one of the handsomest church buildings in the city.” Actually, in old photographs the building appears to have been mostly Renaissance in style, but it had a projecting porch facing the street consisting of six large Ionic columns supporting a robust entablature and pediment. Denny also was the architect of the Jefferson County Courthouse in Louisville in 1904, so perhaps it is no surprise that the synagogue looks something like a courthouse. Rabbis from several states attended the dedication. Rabbis were there from both Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Richmond, Virginia, both cities where classical style synagogues were subsequently dedicated in 1904.

Congregation Beth Israel in Macon, Georgia, also built an imposing Roman-temple type building in 1902, designed by local architect Peter E. Dennis. In 1905, a year before Brunner’s Brickbuilder article, three “modern classic” temples had been dedicated in Mississippi alone; in Meridian (demolished 1964), Natchez, and Greenville. A similar 450-seat synagogue in Alexandria, Louisiana opened in 1907.

In Mississippi especially, the motive for the classical designs might have been patriotic. While the forms of the new synagogues recall those of Kahn’s Beth El in Detroit, they closely resemble those of the Pantheon-like Illinois State Monument dedicated at the Vicksburg Battlefield, also in 1906.vi Elsewhere, throughout the country, classicism could be equally tied to civic life and could be seen in the architecture of libraries, courthouses and universities, many of which were quickly adopting the new “White City” classicism.vii

Significant classical style synagogues were erected in Chattanooga (1904), Richmond (1904), Louisville (1906), Kansas City (1907), St. Louis (1908) and New Bern, North Carolina (1908), among many other places. The normality of these buildings and their religiously neutral or ecumenical appearance is seen in a postcard from Louisville that pairs the new Temple Adath Israel with the First Christian Church. The two buildings are virtually indistinguishable, except that the synagogue displays a Decalogue (Ten Commandments) set within its pediment though historian Lee Shai Weissbach has pointed out that this Decalogue was never installed. Many of the other classical synagogues of the period did include Jewish symbols as pediment decorations, particularly the Star of David, though on most of these buildings symbols were unobtrusive and façade inscriptions were usually in English, not Hebrew. A favorite line used on the façades of Reform Temples is “My house shall be a house of prayer for all peoples (Isaiah 56:7). The quotation, always presented in English, was a proclamation intended as much for the general community as it was for the Jewish congregants. It signified – as did the classical architecture – the attempt at near-ecumenicalism of the Reform Movement. In the 1920s, when the classical style became widespread among Conservative and Orthodox congregations, their buildings always had inscriptions in Hebrew, though sometimes English was also included.

Louisville’s Temple Adath Israel had staged a competition for the design (one of the first competitions for synagogues in America), to which Louisville architect William G. Tachau had submitted an entry. Despite his local Jewish roots, Tachau did not receive the commission, which went to Kenneth McDonald and John Francis Sheblessy, prominent local architects and both Christians. We do not know what specifically the architect and congregation were thinking when they chose the Roman temple-style design. According to Weissbach, “There is no way of determining whether they were aware of recent Greco-Roman synagogue discoveries in Palestine, for example, or how important it was that a member of the congregation, Alfred Joseph, served as senior draftsman on the project.” xii Still, it is easy to agree with Weissbach that, “Adath Israel was attempting to associate itself with the most sophisticated artistic sentiment of the time and the latest developments in American culture. In doing so, the commonwealth’s oldest congregation was declaring its strong sense of self-confidence and its feeling of security as a part of Kentucky society.”

Notes:

Richard D. Funderburke, "Willis F. Denny II, Architect: A Brief Career, a Lasting Influence," Preservation Bulletin (January 1995); and “W. F. Denny (1874-1905),” in New Georgia Encyclopedia, http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-715&hl=y (posted 2002, accessed Nov 14, 2008). According to Funderburke, Denny’s work “reflects the major shifts in design that took place at that time when the picturesque, eclectic forms of the Victorian era gave way to neoclassicism and more historically accurate period revival styles.” For more on the synagogue, see Janice Rothschild Blumberg, As But a Day to Hundred and Twenty, 1867-1987 (Atlanta: Hebrew Benevolent Congregation, 1987), 55 ff.

Steven H. Moffson, “Identity and Assimilation in Synagogue Architecture in Georgia, 1870-1920,” in Alison K. Hoagland and Kenneth A. Breisch, editors, Constructing Image, Identity, and Place: Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, volume 9, (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2003), 151-165.

Lee Shai Weissbach, The Synagogues of Kentucky: Architecture and History (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1995), 74-75.

Germany: A Dramatic and Entirely New Synagogue Form for Historic Mainz

Above: Old (New) Synagogue of Mainz, destoryed on Kristallnacht (from postcard).
Below: Architect Manuel Herz with model of new synagogue (photo: AFP).

Germany: A Dramatic and Entirely New Synagogue Form for Historic Mainz

Last month Germany opened its newest - and most unusual synagogue building. The Mainz Jewish community is one of Germany's most historic - dating back at least to dynamic intellectual heyday in the Middle Ages. Now the small community is the most contemporary and cutting edge - at least architecturally. As Gavriel Rosenfeld explains in an article in The Forward, architect Manuel Herz's design is something entirely new. It derives not from any traditional (Jewish or otherwise) building vocabulary, but from the very vocabulary and calligraphy of Hebrew prayer. This is in stark contrast to other new synagogues in Germany - notable the monumental synagogue in Munich that recalls the architecture of the Jerusalem Temple in its stark and simply geometry and massing. Formally, the new Mainz synagogue is obviously inspired by the architecture of Daniel Libeskind (with whom Herz studied), most notably at his museums of Osnabruck and Berlin. From what I can tell from photos, the synagogue combines the drama of the Berlin Jewish Museum with the intimacy of the Nussbaum Museum in Osnabruck (which is now being expanded - so what the future holds is still unknown).

For photos click here.

How the New Synagogue in Mainz Has Its Cake and Eats It Too

by Gavriel Rosenfeld

The construction of a new synagogue is always an occasion for celebration, so it was with particular pomp that the Rhineland city of Mainz recently dedicated its new synagogue and Jewish community center. The dedication ceremonies, held September 3, featured an array of German politicians, including German President Christian Wulff. Many of them blessed the new building and underscored its symbolic significance. Yet, while the synagogue received its share of blessings, it also gave physical expression to them in its architectural form. Designed by the German-Jewish architect Manuel Herz, Mainz’s striking new synagogue complex traces its inspiration back to the third “blessing” in the Amidah — the Kedusha. The connection between the word and the synagogue’s appearance is not immediately obvious. But Herz’s drawings for the building reveal that its sawtooth form partly derives from the jagged pattern produced by the word’s five Hebrew letters: kuf, daled, vav, shin and hay.

Read the entire article here.

You can also read more about the synagogue and Mainz here.