Wilshire Boulevard Temple
- Architect
- Samuel Tilden Norton
- Year
- 1929
- Style
- Byzantine
- City
- Los Angeles, CA
Founded in 1862 as Congregation B'nai B'rith, the oldest Jewish congregation in Los Angeles, the Wilshire Boulevard Temple built its main sanctuary in 1929 to a design by Samuel Tilden Norton, topped with a large Byzantine Revival dome and decorated with interior murals. The congregation took its present name in 1933.
the building
The dome and murals. The sanctuary is capped by a large Byzantine Revival dome and finished inside with murals, giving the temple its distinctive domed profile on Wilshire Boulevard.
the style
The Byzantine Revival dome sets the building apart from the Spanish and Mediterranean Revival styles common along Wilshire Boulevard, marking the temple as a sacred building rather than a commercial one.
More on Byzantinesignificance
The temple was designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 1973 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981. Rabbi Edgar Magnin, described as the 'John Wayne' of rabbis, led the congregation for 69 years, from 1915 to 1984. Despite repeated reports that the congregation might sell the building, now in the Koreatown neighborhood, it has instead undergone extensive renovations; a second campus opened on the Westside in 1998.
nearby
- St. Basil Catholic Church
- Equitable Life Building
- Chapman Park Studio Building
- Pellissier Building and Wiltern Theatre
- Chapman Park Market Building
- Brown Derby