“But take care and watch yourselves well,

lest you forget what your own eyes saw,

so it won’t depart from your hearts,

make it known to your children and your children’s children...”

Devarim (Deuteronomy) 4:9

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Memory is a potent force. It’s a vehicle for transmitting knowledge, invoking tradition, indulging in nostalgia, and reflecting upon tragedy. It drives us to shape stories, travel vast distances, and build communities. My research into the evolving role of historic sacred spaces funded by the Arizona Architecture Foundation is deeply concerned with memory. If we intend to design meaningful futures for our deteriorating stock of historic sacred spaces, we must first understand the people who shaped and inhabited them. In the most recent entry to this series, I shared the story of Temple Beth Israel, Phoenix’s first Jewish congregation. Its evolution reveals a proven approach to reshaping historically significant sites. For the third installment, I reflect on the Stone Avenue Temple in Tucson, the very first synagogue in the Arizona territory and the anchor for the city’s Jewish Museum & Holocaust Center, a nuanced achievement in the adaptive reuse of heritage buildings.

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Humanity has a capricious relationship with historic structures. Financial uncertainty, structural instability, and cultural ambiguity often make rehabilitation untenable. Yet, reshaping historic spaces through adaptive reuse is vital in a world teeming with fast contemporary architecture bereft of apparent context. It breathes new life into older buildings, converting them to serve local needs. It reveals how our predecessors lived while hinting at potential ways forward. The practice transforms telephone switchboard facilities into loft apartments, auto repair shops into breweries, and synagogues into museums, with each site demanding a distinct approach in its reimagining.

A strong example of a bespoke alteration is the Jewish Museum and Holocaust Center in Tucson, where a thriving multi-generational community has supported several strategies to preserve their cultural artifacts. Located in the Barrio Viejo, the center includes a restored temple, a fully converted historic home, a street-facing courtyard, a series of outdoor structures, and a tucked-away garden space. My research into their history, stewardship, and aspirations largely mirrors Congregation Beth Israel’s in Phoenix, revealing a common pattern that has shaped both historic synagogues.

The story goes: enterprising families relocate to a new area, establish businesses that foster financial stability, and eventually commission sanctuaries to reconnect with their ancestral traditions. These halls provide much-needed gathering spaces for celebration, worship, and remembrance. Over time, the community outgrows the space and relocates to the suburbs, closer to their new homes. Their temple is sold to another ethnic group that goes through a similar cycle, and after decades of expansion and transition, the building falls into disrepair.

Variations of this story have emerged nationwide. Swells of immigration, flight to the suburbs, and return to urban cores impact more than traffic and housing costs. In the case of both Arizona communities, concerted efforts to return, reinvest, and restore have demonstrated the immense challenges involved in maintaining historic sites. The decision to re-envision their sites as Holocaust Education Centers may have been motivated by the need to preserve space and story; however, it also speaks to broader issues of commemoration, tolerance, and fundraising. While the Cutler Plotkin Jewish Heritage Center in Phoenix is still in the early stages of its capital development campaign, the Tucson Jewish Museum & Holocaust Center (TJMHC) has been fully operational since 2016.

Approaching the center along South Stone Avenue, the vibrant adobe buildings of Barrio Viejo give way to a pair of domed towers emerging behind the tree line. Under the foliage, passersby discover the Greek Revival synagogue and a red brick house framing a courtyard behind a wrought iron fence. Designed by architect Ely Blount in 1910, the temple’s white stucco facade features a central gable with arched windows between four pilasters. Below the flanking towers, raised steps lead up to the sanctuary behind timber doors.

Inside, the vaulted great hall now serves as an open gallery housing exhibits on local Jewish history. A procession of restored pews frames a multimedia experience, physical artifacts, and a raised central altar showcasing a preserved Torah. The collection has gone through multiple curatorial iterations, and while it’s a massive achievement, the triumph is the Holocaust Center in the renovated house next door.

The expansion’s design was a collaborative effort led by architect Thomas Sayler-Brown of the Tucson-based firm SBBL Architecture + Planning. Before their 2022 retirement, the firm was known for its portfolio of thoughtfully delivered projects across Arizona. Although most of their work focused on new construction, Sayler-Brown considered the TJMHC conversion the most significant assignment in his decades-long career. “This project got my creativity going in ways I hadn’t expected,” said Sayler-Brown, “I found myself collaborating with local artists and scouring the area for interesting new materials to work with.” After an initial agreement to produce conceptual renderings helped the community meet its fundraising goal, the team worked quickly to fulfill tight entitlement and permitting deadlines. Their design was lean and restrained, allowing further creative detailing as construction progressed.

The museum’s interiors are divided by mobile partitions and exposed structural members, allowing the flexible space to accommodate a wide-ranging collection. Blackened steel displays narrate the Holocaust along a timeline, while recordings, rotating exhibits, and a memorial wall of local survivors' portraits weave emotionally resonant connections between the space and the city. Perhaps the most striking gallery resides in the attic. Set against a dark backdrop, exposed trusses display suspended photographs donated by local survivors and their families, tying the architecture further into the storytelling. This charged space is no longer for hiding but for bold exhibition. The building itself serves as a canvas for sharing these memories. The space, reshaped with its historical materials, transports visitors to another time, delivering an immersive experience that invokes a deeply empathetic response. “The shell of the building came off our drawing boards, but there were plenty of surprises during construction that opened up new possibilities,” suggested Sayler-Brown.

As contractors took the 120-year-old interiors apart in preparation for the new commercial-grade finishes, Sayler-Brown felt compelled to stockpile the old growth timbers in the backyard. “I told the builders we were going to reuse them. I didn’t know how at the time, but I knew we would,” recalled Sayler-Brown. Upon exiting towards the back, the darker compressed gallery exits to a sunny garden. The raised patio foregrounds an open hardscape with floating benches flanked by murals under a canopy of foliage and string lights. For those less emotionally prepared for the expanse, a smaller Turrell-esque reflection space offers more intimate relief.

The power of the overall design lies in its ability to evoke a spectrum of emotions, allowing visitors to shape their interpretations through subtle details. The complexity of the subject matter demands nuance, making the richly patinated building an active part of the storytelling. “We had the pragmatic requirement to understand the context... to connect the two buildings, and to get people where they were going,” explained Sayler-Brown, “and we knew that had to feel special.” Working with experts on Judaic studies and the museum’s curatorial staff, the SBBL team was challenged to ensure “every decision had meaning, not symbolism, but meaning,” Sayler-Brown reflected, “I finally understood what that meant after working on this project.”

Throughout our discussion, the architect reminisced about how visitors shared their experiences with him. The use of contemporary materials against the historic fabric encourages a layered reading. “I once gave a docent hell for explaining the symbolism of the space to a group of visitors,” he recalled, “whatever they said was never going resonate as much as what (visitors) figured out on their own” Art that doesn't compel predetermined conclusions allows audiences to shape their own positions. In this context, adaptive reuse becomes an immersive tool for fostering empathy. Visitors can connect to local and distant histories, experience how people lived, and see buildings reshaped as houses of memory. The design of the TJMHC doesn’t rely on cutting-edge technology to tell stories; instead, subtle changes in domestic space, light, and materiality prepare visitors to connect at deeper personal levels.

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While memorial spaces serve as effective fundraising tools, we must also explore other avenues to give historic structures renewed purpose. Should we continue pursuing funding with relentless pragmatism, even when it leads us down contentious paths? Critiques of trauma commodification, facadectomy, and pastiche may be charged, but at least our shared heritage would continue informing future generations. Alternatively, should we allow these sites to decay, leaving their fate to those who follow us? Perhaps, but the risk of losing what few buildings remain to questionable development practices looms large. Or are there untapped opportunities, hidden in plain sight, that could guide us as we negotiate the roads ahead?