Centerbrook completes stone and copper clad Synagogue in Ohio
This new synagogue incorporates a sanctuary, school, and library. It serves as a new East Campus for the renowned Park Synagogue in Cleveland Heights, designed by Eric Mendelsohn in 1950. Like its older sibling it offers a community center for nearby congregants.
The building is a simple steel frame box dressed in a stick and panel mosaic of copper cladding. Three large organic shapes burst from the box: a Jerusalem stone clad sanctuary and two great copper-covered entrance canopies that bend towards each other in a gesture of welcome and blessing.
The sanctuary is surrounded inside and out by gently curving, monumental stone walls. A curving canopy of interwoven wood beams arcs over the bimah. It reflects voices and music and offers a sense of shelter to the congregation. Light in the sanctuary comes indirectly from four edges, giving it a soft glow for quietude and solace.
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