INSPIRATION

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Completed in 1957, the Temple EmanuEl became the largest, most expensive, and most detailed synagogue of Meyer’s religious architecture repertoire.

Having worked on two other synagogues, Teferet Israel Synagogue (1938) and Temple Beth El (1938-48), Howard Meyer’s efforts in religious architecture reached their pinnacle through the creation of Temple EmanuEl. Completed in 1957, the Temple EmanuEl became the largest, most expensive, and most detailed synagogue of Meyer's religious architecture repertoire.

Temple EmanuEl reveals a sense of maturity in Meyer’s architecturally aesthetic through a culmination of his bourgeoning architectural experience and emphasized effort of collaboration on the project. Combing the efforts of structural engineers, landscape architects, lighting consultants, artists, and additional architects developed an architectural masterpiece that alone each could seemingly not have conceived. Consequently, Howard Meyer’s Temple EmanuEl achieves a resolutely cohesive international building within variety that lacks a “signature” appeal.

Comprised of discrete units, the massing of Temple EmanuEl exalts the series of interior programs. Through the chapel, sanctuary, the hall, offices, entertainment, meeting spaces, and a school, the forms clearly express the interior functionality of the building. Contrasting the seemingly sterometric forms of Temple EmanuEl, the encapsulated green spaces and arcaded garden create areas of retreat and reflection similar to what Meyer implements in the interior program. These enclosed courtyards provide an organic connection and a feeling of sanctity due to their positioning throughout the built environment. Providing division between the exterior inhabitable space and the interior of the temple is a glass-partitioning device. The playful nature of the varying textures of the glass panes allows for dappling and diffusion of light into the corridors. This natural lighting technique creates a unique ambiance that emanates the religious nature of the building.

3525 Turtle Creek provided Meyer the opportunity to create a large-scale housing complex to relay the forward thinking nature that was emerging as Dallas was defining itself as a city of class and style.

Emanating the ideals of luxury and finesse, the perspective interiors of 3525 Turtle Creek are poignant in respect to the perspective resident. Being the first truly modernist building in Dallas, 3525 Turtle Creek became a symbol of an emerging lifestyle in Dallas. Appreciative of the arts and progressive building motifs lent from European predecessors, the residents of 3525 Turtle Creek paved the way for the acceptability of the international-style in the context of a multi-story, multi-family environment. 

Open concept-plans within the individual units of 3525 Turtle Creek allowed for an unconstructed sensibility in respect to entertaining. Similar to the concepts employed in the highly recognized Barcelona Pavilion and Tugenhaut House by Mies van der Rohe, floating partition serve as “walls” within the space. While the public interior space remain unrestrained within their unit and private spaces remain bound for privacy, Meyer clearly maintains his allegiance to the modernist principles of interior spatial programming. 

Preservation Dallas, & The Dallas Architecture Forum. (1997, November). Howard Meyer: Temple Emanu-El and Other Works. Dallas: Preservation Dallas.

While practitioners of the International Style, such as Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, elevated the exposure of structure and “weightlessness,” Meyer strove to balance the conflicting tendencies of maintaining spaciousness while providing substance.

Built in 1951 for Mr. and Mrs. Ben Liphsy in Dallas, Texas, the Nakoma Residence would come to symbolize Howard Meyer’s cohesive architectural aesthetic. Having toured the most acclaimed Modernist residences and having met Le Corbusier himself in 1928, Meyer had a significant and unusual education that allowed him an immersion into the modernist aesthetic. As a result. Meyer had cosmopolitan perspective that many American architects of the time lacked. The principles of the International Styles would become prevalent in the Meyer’s designs through his free-flowing arrangement of space and simplicity in rectilinear forms; however, the architect felt the need for connectivity to site and greater substance that could not be found in the “lightness” of Modernist architecture. As much as Meyer admired Le Corbusier and his Toward a New Architecture (1921), he additionally borrowed from the craftsman-centric and honesty-to-materials of the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Through Meyer’s wealth of knowledge regarding the International Style and his prevailing interest in indigenous materials, the Nakoma Residence comes to be an adept reconciliation of Modernist expressed in indigenous materials to be in harmony with the local circumstance. 

In 1956, Meyer brought about the realization of a residence for Mr. and Mrs. Milton Tobian. Employing International Style vocabulary, the Rockbrook Residence relies heavily on a palette of rectilinear forms in consonance. While the planar nature of the architectonic forms provides a sense of stasis, the dynamic nature of mature live oaks and other surrounding forms of vegetation visually provides a harmonious arrangement of the built environment and nature.

Nestled under the canopy of oak boughs, the flat roof overhangs complement the natural shading structure of the trees. The idea of analogous, man-made and natural structures becomes evident at the Rockbrook Residence and later becomes a motif throughout many of Meyer’s pieces.. The use of sunshades, porches, pagodas, and other forms of man-made shading devices requisite in mediating the Texas climate. 

With the completion of this Rockbrook Residence, reveals a progression within his architectural aesthetic. Whereas Meyer’s Nakoma Residence illustrates a strict adherence to Modernist principles in respect to materials, the Rockbrook Residence begins to convey a greater responsiveness to the indigenous material palette. Composing soft Mexican brick and redwood posts and beams against large expanses of glass, Meyer portrays a domestic project decorous of the North Texas location.

Clark, C. (2010, April 29). Regarding Architect Howard Meyer. Interview presented at Howardmeyer.org.