A Place at the Table

The National Museum of American Jewish History fits in with Old City's monuments of democracy.


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Published: Nov 10, 2010

THE GLASS MENAGERIE: The newly constructed National Museum of American Jewish History, shown here in a night rendering, features a glass wall that serves as a prism, a veil and a welcome mat.

Polshek Partnership Architects

[ opening ]

With a sigh of relief, many observers of Independence Mall will note that its newest addition looks modern. It's not colonial brick, it doesn't have sculpted filigrees on the roof line, it's not brutally monolithic. Instead, it has dynamic planes, a variety of materials and textures, dominated by great gleaming sheets of glass. There's nothing Jewish about it — architect James Polshek says he designed a building that is spiritually neutral. The National Museum of American Jewish History bills itself as a patriotic museum, not a religious one, but that's a tricky line to toe.

That glass wall serves many purposes, and Polshek has many names for it: a veil, a prism, a welcome mat. From a distance it appears to be a wire mesh, like some kind of early Frank Gehry experiment. But come closer! — it's actually fritted glass: There is a ceramic pattern baked into the panes in weave pattern, tiny gray squares becoming the negative space between transparent woven lines.

With that gray-scale pixilation, the building announces itself as the new kid on the block — with a nod to its neighbor, the Bourse, of course. That terra-cotta shopping center built in 1895 is referenced on the museum's north wall, also made with terra cotta. The dialogue with the Bourse (a kind of Talmud in stone) runs outside in, as a vein of the earthy red clay snakes along the ceiling of the museum's lobby.

One of the main design objectives of the museum is manipulating light. This is how the glass wall is a veil: With light, the building affects some emotional control over the museum-goer. A wall of pure glass lets in a powerful amount of sideways sun, with the frit dampening the flood. A rooftop skylight above a five-story atrium pours light through the building's core. Four galleries circling the atrium run that light top-down and sideways.

On the balcony behind the glass, visitors can enjoy one of the best 180-degree views of Independence Mall — you can take in both Independence Hall and the Constitution Center by simply panning your head left to right. Partial walls block sunlight from the preview gallery on each floor, where multimedia screens tease the themes explored in the enclosed black-box main galleries, lit artificially to protect the artifacts from sun damage.

Those artifacts are, of course, the point of all this fanfare. The NMAJH tells the story of American Jews over 350 years, beginning with the first boatload of expat Jews from Brazil landing in 1654, going through the 19th-century mass migration, pausing over Irving Berlin, glancing at costumes from Yentl, and soliciting video confessions from visitors who can record their own stories and keep the cultural dialogue going.

The curators utilize the most modern exhibition technology available. Why have just a map tracking Jews during the Western expansion when you can have a 12-foot interactive video map? Projections, animation and sound-designed immersion are crammed along winding paths throughout 5,400 square feet on each floor. Every inch is used to dazzle, enlighten and engage. The section on the third floor depicting a New York tenement during the first wave of mass immigration triggers claustrophobia. On the second floor, the photos used in a mock-up of a suburban tract house evoke déja vu: Donated private family photos depict the lifestyle of the midcentury, middle-class American Jew.

The density of the material is enough to leave your head spinning. Once you emerge from each level's enclosed gallery, you are back into the atrium, with its five floors of open space and unbroken sunlight. Gives you a chance to breathe.

This is how that fritted glass wall is a prism: After crushing through the successes and failures of a minority people scrambling to make it in America (Einstein's pipe! Kosher processed food!), the visitor exits onto the glassed-in balcony to look over the Liberty Bell, the Constitution Center and Dow Chemical's Rohm and Haas building. The museum hopes the American ideal — freedom — will look refreshed as refracted through the frit.

"In some ways it's simple, but as we all know in practice it is difficult," says chief curator Josh Perelman. "It's challenging for this country to live up to its ideals." By tailoring itself to trace Jews through three and a half centuries of the American experiment, the museum exploits its location overlooking the birthplace of democracy.

(editorial@citypaper.net)

:The National Museum of American Jewish History's grand opening weekend is Nov. 12-14 and opens to the public Nov. 26, 101 S. Independence Mall East, 215-923-3811, nmajh.org.