Temple Emanu-El is the largest synagogue in the world, seating 2,500 people. Designed by Kohn, Butler, and Stein, its Moorish-Romanesque facade symbolizes a mingling of Eastern and Western cultures. Associate architects Mayers, Murray & Phillip were responsible for the interior decoration and enlisted Hildreth Meière to provide Byzantine-style glass mosaics for the eight-story-high arch of the main sanctuary, which encases the altar and the Ark housing the Torah scrolls on the eastern wall.The Ark is designed to look like an open Torah scroll. Meière enclosed the marble frame with a floral border in glass mosaic and added colorful inserts. Her designs differ from the geometric patterns on the arch columns and the designs in the narthex at St. Bartholomew’s Church, reflecting her versatility within the Art Deco style.Meière incorporated Judaic symbols into a complex, geometric, Art Deco pattern on vertical bands, representing eleven symbols, including the Tree of Life, Menorah, Star of David, and Wedding Canopy. Her sophisticated designs in bright colors and vibrant shades of gold leaf are intricate, with no repeats among the vertical bands. The black-and-white chevron border was inspired by Sioux quillwork and beadwork.Meière’s mosaics were fabricated in Berlin by Pühl & Wagner and installed by Ravenna Mosaics. In 1928, Meière and Francis Mayers visited the Berlin factory, where Meière learned about the mosaic-making process. Her cartoons for the designs remain in Berlin, part of the Pühl & Wagner, Heinersdorff Company Archive.Meière wrote, "It is always a pleasant shock to me to find how far superior the finished craft work is to the cartoons. This is true for every medium for which I have designed and makes me realize how much lies in the beauty of the material itself, the value of its texture, the character of its surface and color."[1]When the mosaics were cleaned in 2005, only six of the millions of tesserae became loose, attesting to the fine quality of Ravenna Mosaic’s installation.
