Holocaust Museum and Education Center Early Scheme, Skokie, Illinois, Model

Deeply connected to Judaism, Tigerman was able to integrate symbolic gestures of his religion through the site plan, use of materials, and formal language for the Holocaust Museum and Education Center. As seen in his model for an early scheme, the two buildings are placed at different orientations—the darkened museum wing points six degrees toward the Western Wall in Jerusalem, and the lighter education center toward the rising sun. The cleave between the buildings contains an inaccessible space with a 1934 German railcar. This sketch, Temple of Eden of Temple, for a reform Jewish synagogue, illustrates Tigerman’s diagrammatic analysis of religion in relationship to orientation and axial positioning. Both the Holocaust Museum and Education Center and Temple Or Shalom display Tigerman’s keen use of symmetry, axis, and procession.