Beth Sholom Voguing

We headed out to the driveway and lined up quickly in front of the Synagogue,
trying to allow the congregants to get past us.

Advice from another Wright designed house of God, the First Unitarian Church of Madison, Wisconsin, Minister Max David Gaebler:
” If there is one single bit of experience that we could offer it would be that no estimate you have yet formed on you congregational life is anywhere near what will actually happen. In terms of public attention, in terms of growth for your own congregation, in terms of what such a building can do as a subtle influence on all your ways of working and worshipping- in all these ways your new building will far exceed any expectations you may now have.”


Tom gets in a few shots



 

May 11 1956 Work begins at Beth Sholom.
At this time 87 year old Frank Lloyd Wright is working simultaneously on the Guggenheim Museum in NYC, a factory in SFO, a theatre in Dallas, a chain of motels, forty houses in 20 states, a commercial building in Venezuela and a memorial in Venice.
Earnest Hemingway writes:
ÒBetter a fire in Venice than a building by Frank Lloyd Wright.Ó
Wright replies, Òjust a voice from the jungle.Ó

The fireplace smoke stack- from the room where we first sat- is actually disguised in the most right menorah detail near the base.


Tom's camera shows a rainbow

January 1958 Frank Lloyd Wright writes:
ÒLet God put His colors on, for He is the great Artist. When the sun shines, the temple will glitter like gold. At night in the moonlight, it will shine like silver. On gray days it will be gray. When the heavens are blue, a soft blue will cover the building.Ó


1957 July Jacques Lipchitz (yes, the one who created the friezes for the front door of the Barnes- and then wasn't allowed inside ) writes: “… our holiness come from the top of Mount Sinai down to earth. We don’t have to climb high to find holiness. Everything is holy everywhere. The work of Frank Lloyd Wright seems to me absolutely exceptional.”

Beth Sholom Synagogue, the only Frank Lloyd Wright Synagogue.