Congregation Beth Shalom featured in Architectural Record December Issue
The Congregation Beth Shalom Synagogue Addition was recently featured in Architectural Record‘s December issue on Spiritual Buildings. The project creates a sacred and welcoming space to serve as the heart and spiritual home of the Congregation, supporting prayer and bridging meaningful connections between generations. For nearly two decades, the Congregation had utilized the existing building’s multi-purpose social hall as a temporary sanctuary. Congregation Beth Shalom worked with design partners Preston Scott Cohen and BNIM (Architect of Record) on a new Synagogue Addition, thoughtfully envisioning and designing a dedicated space for worship and community.
Photography by Kendall McCaugherty
The new sanctuary is designed to reflect the Torah and Jewish prayer, with a strong link to historic Polish Synagogue examples as historical precedent that featured centrally focused interior organizational design centered on the Torah Arc. The building’s dynamic geometry is designed as an expression of the Torah scrolls with curved walls extending from the building’s form to define the sanctuary’s exterior and interior spaces. The oval-shaped sanctuary conveys the feeling of being enveloped by the Torah, embracing the Congregation.
It was important that the sanctuary’s design provide the flexibility and space necessary to host services and gatherings of multiple scales, while also nurturing both the personal and communal experiences of the Congregation. The sanctuary provides generous space for a variety of seating configurations and a carefully integrated acoustical design to accommodate services of up to 500 people on High Holy days, while weekly Shabbat services lean into the connective spirit of a smaller and more intimate worship experience, accentuating the natural acoustics of the space.
Natural light illuminates the sanctuary from windows of varying heights and angles. Just as the passage of time is experienced in reading the Torah, the architecture of the sanctuary reflects changes in time and ritual for the Congregation throughout year as well as over the course of morning, afternoon, and evening worship services. As described by Congregation Beth Shalom’s Senior Rabbi David Glickman, “The natural light from the windows becomes kinetic art in the sanctuary…I really feel like our prayers are in conversation with those natural cycles of time via the natural light.”
