North Shore Congregation Israel is a

Reform Reform ( lat, reformo) means the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc. The use of the word in this way emerges in the late 18th century and is believed to originate from Christopher Wyvill's Association movement ...

synagogue located at 1185

Sheridan Road Sheridan Road is a major north-south street that leads from Diversey Parkway in Chicago, Illinois, north to the Illinois-Wisconsin border and beyond to Racine. Throughout most of its run, it is the easternmost north-south through street, closest ...

in Glencoe, Illinois. The congregation started in 1920 as the North Shore branch of Sinai Congregation, and is the oldest in the Chicago North Shore suburbs. The decision to establish a separate congregation had been a subject of concerned discussion for a number of years, and was perceived as an important step in the evolution of the Jewish presence in the North Shore as a separate community. The first full-time rabbi was Harvey Wessel in 1926. The congregation's 1964 building is located on a 19-acre lakefront parcel, formerly the location of a 1911 mansion that was designed by Chicago architect David Adler for his uncle, hat manufacturer Charles A. Stonehill, and was later owned by Syma Cohen Busiel, the co-founder of Lady Esther cosmetics, before it was sold to the congregation in 1961 for $500,000. The building was designed by the well-known, Detroit-based modernist architect

Minoru Yamasaki was an American architect, best known for designing the original World Trade Center in New York City and several other large-scale projects. Yamasaki was one of the most prominent architects of the 20th century. He and fellow architect Edward ...

. Yamasaki composed the building as a series of arching fan vaults. The voids between the concrete shells of the fan vaults are filled with colored glass above and clear glass at eye level. Yamasaki describes his design as "a confluence of daylight and solids." The building has been described as representative of "a period of post-war modernism that was characterized by assertive architectural gestures that had the strength and integrity to stand alone, without applied artwork or Jewish iconography." Architecture critic Samuel D. Gruber chose an image of the interior of Yamasaki's sanctuary for the cover of his book ''American Synagogues: A Century of Architecture and Jewish Community'', and has noted that this "dramatic, awe-inspiring space" was "hard to use by a congregation, so a smaller sanctuary was built in 1979. Together, the two connected buildings create a portrait of Jewish aspirations in the late-20th century." In celebration of the 2018 Illinois Bicentennial, the North Shore Congregation Israel Synagogue was selected as one of the Illinois 200 Great Places by the

American Institute of Architects The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to su ...

Illinois component (AIA Illinois).

References

External links

Official website

Architectural tour
at Archive.org
North Shore Congregation Israel SynagogueSociety of Architectural Historians SAH ARCHIPEDIA entry on North Shore Congregation Israel Synagogue
{{Coord, 42.1502, N, 87.7585, W, source:wikidata, display=title Synagogues in Glencoe, Illinois Reform synagogues in Illinois Jewish organizations established in 1920 1920 establishments in Illinois 1964 establishments in Illinois Synagogues completed in 1964 Minoru Yamasaki buildings Modernist architecture in Illinois