The congregation was founded in 1920 as the North Shore branch of the Chicago Sinai Congregation and is the oldest Reform synagogue in the Chicago North Shore suburb. The decision to establish a separate congregation was discussed for several years and was seen as an important step in the evolution of the Jewish presence on the North Shore as a distinct community. The first full-time rabbi was Harvey Wessel in 1926.
The congregation’s building, constructed in 1964, is located on a 19-acre (7.7 ha) lakefront site, where previously stood a 1911 mansion designed by Chicago architect David Adler for his uncle, hat manufacturer Charles A. Stonehill, and later owned by Syme Cohen Busiel, co-founder of Lady Esther cosmetics, before it was sold to the congregation in 1961 for $500,000.
The striking 1964 building was designed by Minoru Yamasaki, one of the most prominent modernist architects of the 20th century. Among Yamasaki’s other notable projects are the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and the Beth El Temple in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. He and his fellow architect Edward Durell Stone are generally regarded as two master practitioners of the New Formalism architectural style.
Yamasaki designed the building as a series of arched fan vaults.
The voids between the concrete shells of the fan vaults are filled with colored glass at the top and clear glass at eye level. Yamasaki described his design as a "fusion of daylight and solids." The building has been described as representative of the "postwar modernism period characterized by assertive architectural gestures that possessed the power and integrity to stand alone, without applied art or Jewish iconography."
Architectural critic Samuel D. Gruber chose an image of Yamasaki’s sanctuary interior for the cover of his book "American Synagogues: A Century of Architecture and Jewish Community" and noted that this "dramatic, awe-inspiring space" was "difficult for congregants to use, so a smaller sanctuary was built in the city in 1979. Together, these two connected buildings create a portrait of Jewish aspirations in the late 20th century."
As part of Illinois’ bicentennial celebration in 2018, the North Shore Congregation Israel synagogue was selected as one of 200 great places by the Illinois chapter of the American Institute of Architects.
Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Shore_Congregation_Israel
http://www.illinoisgreatplaces.com/#detail/north_shore_congregation_israel_synagogue-052/type=religious/city=chicago
