414 inn
37 EAST 18TH ST 10TH FLR NY NY 10003 T: 212-598-0900 F: 212-598-9028 INFO@FREYER ARCHITECTS.COM
The hundred-year-old Young Israel Synagogue, founded to appeal to the rapidly assimilating Jewish residents of the Lower East Side, had two ailing buildings side-by-side, and a need to modernize. They had little money to do so, but a great deal of another currency: air rights. The project development team, which had recently worked with another Orthodox congregation in similar circumstances, developed a scheme that was 45 percent synagogue, 55 percent housing, with separate-but-equal entrances on the sidewalk, holding the historic building line, for congregants and residents.
As a hybrid, the design by Freyer Collaborative Architects blurs function only at these entrances, where the synagogue’s stone facade borrows presence from the glass residential lobby. Stepping back, the bifurcated building fits into two traditions, that of the modern, urban, street-front synagogue seen in Manhattan since the 1950s, and that of the many-balconied asymmetrical apartment tower, seen since the 1990s. What is most interesting about this project is that dual nature, simultaneously preserving an old tenant and modernizing the block- potentially encouraging neighbors to follow suit.
HOUSING/HOSPITALITY
copyright 2009 freyer collaborative architects
equestrian oman