Beth Sholom Synagogue: Frank Lloyd Wright and Modern Religious Architecture By Joseph M. Siry University of Chicago Press, 736 pages, $65 When Rabbi Mortimer J. Cohen contacted Frank Lloyd Wright in November 1953 about designing a new sanctuary for his conservative congregation, Beth Sholom, in the Philadelphia suburb of Elkins Park, the legendary architect had…
Crossposted from Haaretz The National Library of Israel is staging an architectural competition for a new $100 million facility in Jerusalem. The privately funded building will be one of the largest public construction projects in Israel in the coming decade, about the size of the Supreme Court, and has already stirred considerable interest in Israel…
When American Jews think of the Israeli landscape, what come to mind are ancient ruins, contemporary settlement blocs and walls of all sorts. But as I recently discovered on a whirlwind trip, the situation on the ground is far more complex than that. Buildings whose history stretches back to pre-state days are being given a…
Crossposted from Samuel Gruber’s Jewish Art & Monuments I’ve previously written about the centennial of the classical-style Temple Concord in Syracuse, dedicated in September 1911. Another impressive (Greco-Roman) Temple-like synagogue building celebrating its centennial this year is the former Oheb Shalom synagogue in Newark, New Jersey, designed by Jewish architect William Lehman (1874-1951) and dedicated…
Crossposted from Haaretz Director Amos Gitai, one of the best-known figures in the Israeli cinema, is establishing Israel’s first museum of architecture. Slated to open in March of next year in Haifa, in cooperation with the local municipality, it will be housed in the studio where Gitai’s father, Munio Gitai Weinraub, used to work. Gitai…
Crossposted from Haaretz Uri Even-Haim has a thing for abandoned homes. Each week, the fifth-year architecture student at the Bezalel Academy sets off around the capital’s downtown in search of forgotten buildings whose owners have disappeared. “Usually, they are old Jerusalem homes, beautiful buildings with stone arches or unique features,” he said. “Sometimes they hide…
Crossposted from Haaretz Next week, Tel Aviv joins the long list of cities around the world with art museums in contemporary, state-of-the-art buildings. What started with the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain in the late 1990s began a mushrooming global trend of investing in the architecture of cultural institutions. Bilbao turned from a sleepy industrial…
Image courtesy of Studio Daniel Libeskind Rising from the conservative courtyard of the Military History Museum of Dresden, a gleaming metallic wedge heads straight for the wall of the original 1873 Saxon armory building. Without pausing, Daniel Libeskind’s new wing cuts through the 19th-century structure and reaches its soaring vantage point on its far side….
100% of profits support our journalism
