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NORMA WYNICK GOLDMAN
Special to the Jewish News

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nyone who has entered the
Jewish Community Center
in West Bloomfield has met
Louis Redstone, the artist.
His bas-relief brick sculpture of the
great menorah decorates the left wall
just before the main entrance.
What everyone may not know, how-
ever, is that the entire building, com-
pleted in 1976, is the work of Louis
Redstone, the architect.
Everything, from the large main
lobby to the lecture halls, gymnasiums,
health club facilities, pool and the
Janice Charach Epstein Art Gallery, are
his design.
In his book Masonry in Architecture,
Redstone says, "In my 45 years of
architectural practice, the integration
of art as part of the building structure
has been the 'trademark' of my office.
'It was only natural that, from the con-
ceptual design stage, a mural was
included as part of the [JCC] building
structure.

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Community
Calendar

38

Mazel
Toy!

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Acclaimed Detroit architect Louis Redstone
has always put his heart into his work
here and in Israel.

Morton Plotnick, JCC executive
director when it was built, says, "Louis
Redstone brought a great sense of
Jewish culture and dignity to the arts,
obvious throughout the building. He
was sensitive to the needs of the Jewish
community, from infants to senior
adults."
The JCC is only one of the many
impressive works from the architectural
studios of Louis Redstone. He also is
the architect of the original Somerset
Mall and adjacent hotel in Troy, the
Michael Berry International Terminal
at Detroit Metropolitan Airport in
Romulus, Beth Achim Synagogue
(now Yeshivat Akiva) in Southfield and
the Grand Traverse Tower and resort
outside Traverse City.
Architect of numerous private and
public buildings, schools, office cen-
ters, banks, shopping malls, police and
fire stations, Redstone is a local treas-
ure. Now approaching his 99th
birthday, he can look back on a
lifetime of dedicated service
to this community, to
the State of Israel

and to the Technion-Israel Institute of
Technology in Haifa.
He lives with Ruth, his wife of more
than 60 years, in a home he designed
and built in northwest Detroit. And
he's excited about an exhibition of his
watercolors currently showing at the
Huntington Woods Library Art
Gallery.

The Early Years

Architect, painter and sculptor,
Redstone has led a multi-faceted life
that could easily be turned into a
Steven Spielberg film.
He survived World War I in Poland,
left at age 17 to become a pioneer
in Palestine, then moved
to Detroit to
become

Louis Redstone

an acclaimed architect.
This very modest man was born and
spent his early years in Grodno, a
Polish town that shifted back and forth
between Russian, German and Polish
domination.
In his autobiography, Louis Redstone:

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The W4zyne H. Buell Building at Lawrence
Technological University in Southfield.

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2002

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