Cymbalista Synagogue and Jewish Heritage Center - Architecture

Architecture

The floor plan of the building comprises approximately 800 m2. From a rectangular base rise two matching towers both square in plan and merging to circles at their highest points of 13.5 m. A rectangular lobby connects the two towers. The original architectural form of the towers is a realisation in stone of the geometrical squaring the circle. In each tower at the circular top is installed a square "canopy" which drapes natural light onto the walls of the hybrid cylinder and rectangle volume. These installations resemble the traditional Jewish wedding canopy, the chuppah, here permanent and poetically cast in light. The Torah Ark is partially lit by translucent onyx. An inscription in Hebrew above it reads, "שויתי יהוה לנגדי תמיד" or in English, "I have set the LORD always before me" from Psalms 16:8.

Read more about this topic:  Cymbalista Synagogue And Jewish Heritage Center

Famous quotes containing the word architecture:

    Polarized light showed the secret architecture of bodies; and when the second-sight of the mind is opened, now one color or form or gesture, and now another, has a pungency, as if a more interior ray had been emitted, disclosing its deep holdings in the frame of things.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    And when his hours are numbered, and the world
    Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
    Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
    To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
    Built in an age, the mad wind’s night-work,
    The frolic architecture of the snow.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    It seems a fantastic paradox, but it is nevertheless a most important truth, that no architecture can be truly noble which is not imperfect.
    John Ruskin (1819–1900)