Percival Goodman

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."

Biography Percival Goodman was born in New York City to parents who were in the arts business. His father was a leading New York auctioneer who abandoned the family when Percival was young. His brother was the noted writer and sociologist Paul Goodman. At age 14, he became an apprentice for an architect. 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's design for B'nai Israel included sculpture, painting, and ark curtain design by Herbert Ferber, Robert Motherwell, and Adolph Gottlieb, respectively. This integration of modern sculpture and artworks, along with the use of natural light, became hallmarks of Goodman's work.

Selected buildings

Florida Tropical House, Beverly Shores, Indiana (interiors, with James S. Kuhne) (1933) Congregation B'nai Israel, Millburn, New Jersey (1951) Temple Emanuel, Davenport, Iowa (1953) Congregation Beth Israel, Lebanon, Pennsylvania (1953) Temple Beth Sholom, Miami Beach, Florida (1954) Temple Israel, Tulsa, Oklahoma (1955) Temple of Aaron, St. Paul, Minnesota (1956) Congregation B'nai Israel, Bridgeport, Connecticut (1956) Congregation Beth Emeth, Albany, New York (1957) Congregation Shaaray Shalom, Franklin Square, New York-West Hempstead, New York (1958) Temple Adath Yeshurun, Manchester, New Hampshire (1959) Fifth Avenue Synagogue, New York, New York (1959) Tanger Hillel (formerly B'nai B'rith Hillel - Abe Stark House), Brooklyn, New York (1959) Shaarey Zedek, Southfield, Michigan (1962) Congregation Beth Shalom, Oak Park, Michigan (1957) Temple Beth El, Rochester, New York (1963) Temple Beth El, Springfield, Massachusetts Congregation Ohev Shalom, Wallingford, Pennsylvania (1965)

Selected writings Communitas: Means of Livelihood and Ways of Life, with Paul Goodman (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1947); revised 2nd edition (New York: Vintage Books, 1960); revised 3rd edition (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990) “Banning Cars from Manhattan”, with Paul Goodman (essay in Dissent (Summer 1961)) The Double E (Anchor Press, 1977) Illustrator for various books by Paul Goodman including: Parents' Day; Don Juan: Or, The Continuum of the Libido; and Stop-Light: Five Dance Poems.