Reading the Torah, commenting on it, and seeking to reify it are the touchstone acts of Jewish religious life. Essential to the Jewish ritual practice, the tradition has been transmitted from generation to generation of the “People of the Book”

The Beit Binyamin Synagogue’s design is inspired by the shapes of Hebrew Letters and the layering found in the layout of a page of the Talmud. The exterior walls are abstracted forms evocative of Hebrew letters while avoiding a literal representation. The spaces are organized in an onion-like manner, wrapping and protecting the most sacred space in the center with layers of everyday program. The changing width of the wall is an opportunity for programmatic elements such as prayer book storage and it allows for the ark to be part of the architecture itself.

The exterior wall is a composite system with an opaque layer, in which text is cut out. The letters are visible with different degrees of sharpness and color inside the sanctuary, depending on exterior light conditions. At dusk when the Sabbath enters, the light of the sanctuary projects the writing on the façade to the outside. The Hebrew letters signify the centrality of the text to the Jewish prospect. Their immanence in the building structure marks the synagogue as a sacred space whose occupants seek to understand the text and bring it into their lives, and their lives into it.

2003

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