The Architecture of Modern American Synagogues, 1950s–1960s introduces an architectural analysis of select modern American synagogues and reveals how they express American Jewry’s resilience in continuing their physical and spiritual identity, while embracing modernism, American values, and landscape.

Join The Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy for a virtual book talk with author Anat Geva, whose recent book prominently features Wright’s Beth Sholom Synagogue (1954).

In the aftermath of World War II, the United States experienced a rapid expansion of church and synagogue construction as part of a larger “religious boom.” The synagogues built in that era illustrate how their designs pushed the envelope in aesthetics and construction. The design of the synagogues departed from traditional concepts, embraced modernism and innovations in building technology, and evolved beyond the formal/rational style of early 1950s modern architecture to more of an expressionistic design. The latter resulted in abstraction of architectural forms and details, and the inclusion of Jewish art in the new synagogues.

Speaker:
Anat Geva is a professor of architecture at Texas A&M University, a registered architect in Israel, and AIA associate member. She is the author of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Sacred Architecture: Faith, Form, and Building Technology; Modernism and American Mid 20-Century Sacred Architecture; and coauthor of Israel as a Modern Architectural Experimental Lab, 1948–1978.

Thursday November 14, 7:00–8:00pm ET
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