AWARD FOR RELIGIOUS ARCHITECTURE: RENOVATION
Young Israel Ohab Zedek Building Studio Architects Bronx, NY
Ashok Sinha Photography
This growing Modern Orthodox congregation was bursting out of its current home, a converted retail building on Riverdale’ s main street. The design had to conform to a very tight budget, while giving the congregation an enlarged facility with more presence and a stronger visual identity.
Our design completely remakes their nondescript building, refacing it in stucco and stone, with a new light monitor announcing the institutional presence to the approaching traffic. The existing building is reimagined to include an entry lobby, support spaces, and a large new social hall. The sanctuary is all new too: a tall, white room flooded with natural light from twinned rooftop monitors. The centerpiece of the space is its ark, salvaged from an older synagogue nearby and restored to a place of honor.
The project’ s tight budget forced us to make every gesture count, to find ways to save money while improving the design without having the result seem constrained. Each material and assembly was selected to look good, wear well, and be affordable. Our work involved not only community outreach and consensus-building. We also spearheaded pricing and project management to control costs and improve the final product.
JURY COMMENTS: This is a great example where a rundown building has been reborn into a space that is welcoming and luminous. It has a strong sense of spirituality and overcame many challenges to make it a reality.
MULTI-SITE EDUCATION / ADVOCACY AWARD
modTEXAS Amy Walton Texas
An Instagram-based initiative, modTEXAS documents modernist architecture and educates a new generation of preservationists. Followers are invited to seek out subjects and use the # modtexas tag to help crowd-source the largest collection of Texas design worth preserving.
Founded by Amy Walton in 2018, the project features photos from her travels and highlights submissions from others, who have collectively shared over 10,000 posts using # modtexas. With 236,000 square miles to cover, modTEXAS may be the largest midcentury survey ever undertaken. Volunteer photographers, researchers, and citizens work together to share the images and stories that make these buildings special to their communities.
The focus of modTEXAS is broad. It has documented hundreds of churches across the state, gathering first-person histories and other research details to tell their stories. The initiative earned a Modernism in America citation from Docomomo US, and Amy Walton has received a Community Honors award from the American Institute of Architects Dallas Chapter.
JURY COMMENTS: The creation of a database of these projects to raise public awareness and appreciation is a great asset. This project has done a great job of bringing awareness to buildings that can be seen as a collection.
SACRED PLACES • SUMMER 2025 25