Park Avenue Synagogue

Seamlessly combining three adjacent buildings along East 87th Street, MBB crafted a master plan and renovations for the Park Avenue Synagogue to serve its multi-generational congregation of 1,700 families. The design transforms the existing 8-story complex to meet the client’s goals of promoting community and expanding or enhancing spaces for worship and education. New program areas include a flexible double-height chapel and event space, an intimate minyan chapel, new administrative spaces, classrooms, and a music room. Connecting old and new elements, the project highlights and revitalizes the synagogue’s art collection.

The new Madison Avenue entrance opens into a new double-height lobby with a broad, universally accessible path to the historic 1920s sanctuary. Conceived as a sculptural object within the lobby, the new minyan chapel features multilayered wood and metal cladding inspired by the ark of the historic sanctuary. Improved access to daylight was a priority: internal glass partitions visually connect various activities, while a cut in the lobby floor brings daylight to the renovated lower-level event space. The renovation clarifies and improves circulation for the building, including a new stair and elevator core as well as more intuitive wayfinding.

Maximizing flexibility, the new, two-story chapel on the third floor is designed with a fully demountable bimah and moveable partitions to accommodate a variety of programs from religious services to concerts and board meetings. The renovated Early Childhood Center on the fifth and sixth floors opens to a new, multi-purpose roof terrace. Offices for the clergy, educational, and program staff were consolidated in new workspace overlooking the main lobby. Many of the synagogue’s educational programs were transferred to the new Eli M. Black Lifelong Learning Center, also designed by MBB, in a newly acquired building several blocks away.

In revitalizing the 87th Street complex, MBB gave new life to artworks and decorative motifs. Spectacular stained-glass windows, created by renowned American abstract expressionist Adolph Gottlieb in 1954 to depict Jewish holidays, events, and life cycles, were reinstalled throughout the synagogue and the Learning Center. By distributing the artwork throughout the campus, MBB heightened the congregants’ sense of place and belonging while underscoring their shared history. Additionally, MBB translated existing motifs from the decorative frieze above the ark in the main sanctuary into new ornamental patterns in the minyan chapel and the Learning Center.

The renewed religious campus illustrates the potent ways that architecture can bridge historic and contemporary elements and support the evolution of an urban, multi-generational congregation.