Percival Goodman
| Percival Goodman | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
January 13, 1904 New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Died | October 11, 1989 (aged 85) New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Architect |
| Practice | Percival Goodman |
| Buildings | Multiple (see list) |
Percival Goodman (January 13, 1904 – October 11, 1989) was an American urban theorist and architect who designed more than 50 synagogues between 1948 and 1983. He has been called the "leading theorist" of modern synagogue design, and "the most prolific architect in Jewish history."
Percival Goodman was born in New York City to wealthy parents who were artists. His brother was the noted writer and sociologist Paul Goodman. In 1925, Percival Goodman received the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects Paris Prize which sent him to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France for architectural training.
In the earlier part of his career, Goodman designed department store interiors, apartments, and country houses. He also had an interest in urban planning: he submitted a 1930 proposal for the Palace of the Soviets in Moscow, and proposed a master plan for Long Island City. He was an early critic of Robert Moses' parkway plans for New York City, preferring to “improve the center and make livable neighborhoods”; he also criticized the garden city movement of Ebenezer Howard and the Ville Radieuse of Le Corbusier.
Goodman called himself "an agnostic who was converted by Hitler", and after World War II he became more interested in Jewish architecture. At a 1947 conference of the Reform Jewish movement, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, Goodman advocated the use of modern architecture for new Jewish buildings, rather than following the models of older churches and synagogues. He quickly began to receive commissions. Many of these were for new buildings in suburban areas reachable only by car, and Goodman responded by using a variety of designs intended to attract motorists' attention. In 1949 his proposal was selected for a large Holocaust memorial in Manhattan's Riverside Park, but it was never built. His student Peter Eisenman much later completed a Holocaust memorial in Berlin, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.
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