A Visit to Beth Sholom Inspires

This past spring on a business trip to New York City, I was fortunate to have a private tour of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Beth Sholom Synagogue outside Philadelphia, PA. Frank Lloyd Wright’s work greatly inspires my designs for the brand identity for Locke Design and I consider myself an amateur Wright Scholar so this was an exciting day for me! Before we visited I had been studying the building exhaustively in print and on the web. On a chilly and cloudy morning we drove into the Philadelphia suburb of Elkins Park. Just around the bend in normal American suburbia there is was, a white and silver tetrahedral crystalline form rising up just like I’d seen for years in books, online and on television. The exterior is truly unlike anything on earth and is supposed to evoke the form of Mount Sinai. The ancillary spaces of the synagogue are spartan but the main worship space is truly one of the most awe-inspiring modern spaces in America. The great structure rises high into the air and is made of translucent glass filling the space with light. The entire building is Wright’s ode to triangular shapes and filled with Wrightian interpreted Jewish iconography. I would highly recommend a stop if you are in the area, it is worth an hour of anyones time!

Many times great art will inspire my graphic designs.

Want more info on this building? Visit the Beth Sholom Congregation website at http://www.bethsholomcongregation.org/