Designer(s)

Percival Goodman

Architect

Nationality

American

Other designers

Percival Goodman, Architect. Percival Goodman/Albert Kahn architectural firm architects and draftsmen; Abraham Rattner, stained glass Artist

Michigan

Commission

1959

Completion

1962

Commission / Completion details

Completed 1962

Original Brief

Shaarey Zedek was built as a synagogue, religious school and community center. The congregation first gathered in 1861 in Detroit, MI and between 1861-1962 worshiped at six different locations in the city. Desiring to build a group of buildings to serve their congregation, they commissioned Percival Goodman, a noted synagogue architect, to design a campus on a large parcel of land the Detroit suburb of Southfield, MI. In 1962 they moved to the new synagogue, where the congregation worships today.

Significant Alteration(s) with Date(s)

An addition was made to the dining room area off the sanctuary, expanding the space and creating a better kitchen and service area adjoining it. This was designed by Percival Goodman and completed 1986.

Current Use

Currently in use as a Conservative Jewish synagogue, religious school and community center. The school serves children from pre-school through high school, and also has adult education programs.

Current Condition

The buildings are in good condition, being kept in use by an active congregation. The distinctive exterior seems fundamentally unaltered from the original design, and the stained glass in the sanctuary is also intact. The condition of the interior furnishings and design is not known.

General Description

The three buildings are joined together with a entrance hall, where one enters the sanctuary to the left, a smaller chapel ahead, and on the right a hall leading to first the library and then the classrooms. The sanctuary sweeps up into a peak, the base splayed out to form the roof. The other buildings in the complex are low slung and horizontal in contrast to the more vertical sanctuary. Two rows of stained glass, formed of multiple panels each, along the long edges of the peak wall flow from the base of the wall to the top apex. Made of concrete, the sanctuary walls are mostly light gray, contrasting with the darker warmer colors of the other buildings, and the metal roof. The approach to the building is towards the profile of the sanctuary, so visitors see the sprawl of the low buildings, and the high peak rising up from them.

Construction Period

The three buildings, synagogue, school and community center, were built together. At the time they were designed, Percival Goodman also designed where expansions could go as the congregation's needs changed.

Original Physical Context

The area around the complex was landscaped at the time of construction. Southfield, MI is a suburb of Detroit, and like a lot of mid-western towns has a fairly spread out layout. The congregation was able to purchase a large plot of land, setting the complex apart not hemmed nor compared to any neighboring structure.

Technical

Percival Goodman was a prolific synagogue, and modern architect. His innovation was not in choice of materials nor technique. There is concrete used at Shaarey Zedek, but not in any new way.

Social

The space, especially the sanctuary followed the contemporary model for synagogue design, where smaller intimate spaces are preferred over the grand open, impersonal spaces of synagogues of the 1950's. The sanctuary for normal service occupies about of third of the floor space of the space, the walls formed by folding walls. For High Holy Days and other special services, the walls could be folded back and the sanctuary tripled in size. On normal days the other spaces serve as a dining hall and lecture space.

Cultural & Aesthetic

There was a trend in synagogue in the post-war years, where the design would call to mind a tent, or Mount Sinai, or the prow of a ship, all important images to the Jewish story. Shaarey Zedek is a good example of this with the great thrust of the sanctuary portion of the building easily a ship or a mountain.

Historical

Historically Jews, like any other religious group, tend to build worship spaces in the dominant style of the time. Shaarey Zedek, and other synagogues of the post-War period, break with this tradition. Architects concern themselves, not with aping a tradition, but rather with the whole of the space, the light that fills it, and the functional use of the space by the congregation.

General Assessment

Shaarey Zedek is both a beautiful modern building, and Percival Goodman design. Each of Percival Goodman's synagogues are unique, fitted to the site and congregation's needs. It fits well within the scope of his synagogue work, compared to the early ones it has the small, intimate spaces favored in the 1960's versus the 1950's. The expanding space of the sanctuary, is characteristic of the importance Goodman placed on the functionality of a design, the building meeting the needs of the congregation. The stained glass and art in the synagogue reflect Goodman's insistence on using the best artist for the work. Abraham Rattner designed the pioneering stained glass for the Chicago Loop synagogue, popularizing the bold colors and abstract design that we find in Shaarey Zedek.

References

Gruber, Samuel, Paul Rocheleau, and Scott J. Tilden. American Synagogues: A Century of Architecture and Jewish Community. New York: Rizzoli, 2003. Print.Israelowitz, Oscar. Synagogues of the United States: A Photographic and Architectural Survey. Brooklyn, NY: Israelowitz Pub., 1992. Print.Meior, Richard. Recent American Synagogue Architecture. N.p.: Jewish Museum, 1963. Print.\"Shaarey Zedek." Shaarey Zedek. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2013.

Case Study House No. 21

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