After meeting for several years in the auditorium of the Detroit Institute of Arts (
WN62), the members of Temple Israel commissioned Kapp to design a large and costly temple complex. Drawing on his Rackham Building (
WA7.3) in Ann Arbor and influenced by the apartment buildings of Palmer Park, he produced an Art Deco design. First to be finished was the circular sanctuary of limestone crowned with a classical frieze and a copper cornice with palmettes. An allusion to the Middle East is found in the lotus columns flanking the Egyptoid entrance—perhaps they refer to the statues of Boaz and Jachin that stood before the temple in Jerusalem. The social hall was the second phase of construction and the school wing was finished in 1960. The sanctuary is 40 feet high and 120 feet in diameter, seating 1,200 beneath a beveled ceiling supported by overly slender Ionic columns. At the center of the room is a large Star of David, but the most noteworthy object, the ark, has been removed. The congregation sold the temple, and moved in 1980 to a new temple in West Bloomfield.