Join author Anat M. Geva, PhD, Assoc. AIA, as she shares her new book, The Architecture of Modern American Synagogues, 1950s-1960s (Texas A&M Press, 2023).
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.
Geva is a registered architect in Israel and Professor Emeritus of Architecture at Texas A&M University where she taught design, historic preservation, and the history of sacred architecture and of building technology. She is the author of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Sacred Architecture: Faith, Form, and Building Technology (Routledge, 2011), Modernism and American Mid-20th Century Sacred Architecture (Routledge, 2018), coauthor of Israel as a Modern Architectural Experimental Lab, 1948-1978 (Intellect Books, 2020), and editor of Water and Sacred Architecture (Routledge, 2023).
