Join Davis Butner for a presentation on one of the most strikingly diverse religious architectural typologies in the Southeast. As Jewish populations in Southern townships began to form congregations of critical mass over the second half of the 19th century, the resulting emergence of Southern synagogues served as physical manifestations of the complex and nuanced pressures of cultural assimilation met by these migrant communities across the region. Growing Jewish communities formerly occupying existing communal spaces, from abandoned churches to storefronts, began to establish themselves within their local civic contexts by constructing their own spaces of worship in keeping with an established architectural vernacular.  Sprinkled with fusions of religious and uniquely American patriotic symbolism, early Southern synagogues were both architectural chameleons and carefully crafted liminal spaces. Organized around communal principles of the Jewish faith while cautiously adapted to their vernacular surroundings, these initial synagogues served as spatial thresholds between a diaspora’s origin and destination: an embodiment of the promises of economic stability, prosperity, societal acceptance, and civic identity for Jewish migrants in the New World.  

The culmination of two years of research sponsored by the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art's Kyle Danley Taylor Memorial Fellowship, the following presentation will examine the diversity of historic synagogue architecture in the Southeast as a lens of self-reflection and religious identity, offering a comparative survey of a building typology that exemplifies the very essence of American architecture as a fusion of Old and New World precedents.

About our presenter - Davis Butner is a Designer II in Studio Gang’s Chicago office. He brings an interdisciplinary and international background to the Studio, having worked with the Atlanta Symphony and Philadelphia Orchestras, Threshold Acoustics, and Theatre Projects Consultants. As a 2019 Henry Luce Scholar, Davis worked as an architect and researcher for Neri&Hu Design and Research Office in Shanghai, studying adaptive reuse and restoration efforts across China, Japan, and Southeast Asia.

Originally from Atlanta, Davis holds a Master of Architecture from Yale University and Bachelor of Arts degrees in Architectural Design and in Music from the University of Pennsylvania. He is the 2023 Kyle Danley Taylor Fellow of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, studying the history and acoustics of synagogue architecture in the Southeastern US, and serves as a creative consultant for the South Arts Foundation’s annual Creative Placemaking Summit. Outside of the office, Davis is a violinist and violist, currently performing with Chicago’s Lakeview Symphony Orchestra.

The suggested minimum donation to attend is $10.

To register, click here.