Sydell and Arnold Miller Family Campus
The congregation of the Park Synagogue decided to unite its two campuses in Pepper Pike, Ohio, adding to the building that Centerbrook designed in 2005. With its continued eastward migration, the congregation had used their older campus in Cleveland Heights, designed by Erich Mendelsohn, for High Holidays and other large gatherings.
They asked for a new all-purpose hall that could seat 700 for the High Holidays, as well as dinners, lectures, and other gatherings during the rest of the year. They also sought an expanded sanctuary to seat more people during weekly services, and a new chapel for small services.
Because expansion was limited by nearby Shaker Boulevard and its treed setbacks, the new rectangular addition and its parking is set at an angle, creating an outdoor courtyard for contemplation and celebrations. The addition has its own entrance and drive with a new canopy offering shelter to visitors as they approach a new entry hall alongside the courtyard.
The Park Synagogue
The canopy faces north with its roof arcing up in a gesture of greeting, similar to its larger counterparts on the south side of the original building that serve as the primary entrance to the synagogue and school. Here, the linear canopy is simpler, held by tapered columns and ornamented with a hexagonal patterned screen that opens twelve times to reveal its basis – a pattern of the Star of David – and to celebrate the twelve tribes of Israel.
Once inside, congregants can enter Davis Hall, a grand "box within the box" generously daylit by linear clerestory windows on two sides and a window wall on a third. The clerestory to the south is home to colored glass panels by the renowned artist Yaacov Agam. Moved from their original home in the Cleveland Heights building, they now cast a spectrum of colors across the room. Under Agam’s windows are retractable seats, like bleachers but with finer finishes and individual seats, that fold away behind a wall of maple boards. Across from them are a row of maple-clad closets to store chairs and tables. Centering this wall is a subtle ark for services with dark bronze mesh doors hiding patterned glass inner doors in front of golden mesh curtains. An "eternal light" mechanically drops from the ceiling to make the hall a truly sacred space.
The existing sanctuary was enlarged by removing a wall between it and an old social hall. Its original bimah and ark were reoriented to be several steps higher and to face the center of newly expanded seating. Two additional, lower, arcing ceilings with similar arrays of "dropping" lights step down to keep the whole as intimate as it is grand. An adjacent club room on the other side of the sanctuary was transformed into the chapel with its own bimah and ark, with similar patterned glass doors and mesh curtains to Davis Hall. Here, they are protected by two striped columns and a wood canopy with another eternal light and hexagonal patterned mesh.
The original rectangular building is attached to the new addition with a long gallery hall carved out of the old social hall. Home to the congregation’s substantial art collection, it leads to a new day-lit indoor sitting area overlooking the courtyard and on to a new entry hall "veranda" leading to Davis Hall.
The key to all of this was flexibility, with new spaces all doing "double duty." Large lobbies and hallways are also spaces for impromptu or formal meetings with comfortable seating throughout. Davis Hall offers a myriad of arrangements for different purposes. The original kitchen remains more or less where it was, but expanded and with new entries to serve in all directions.
As hoped, the addition looks as if it could have been part of the original design with the same copper board and batten pattern cladding and similar window arrays. Materials are the same but uses have increased manyfold.
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