October 8 event includes visits to the Bender Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington and houses in The Hilltop and Potowmack Preserve neighborhoods
SILVER SPRING, MD – The Montgomery County Planning Department, part of The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, is co-sponsoring a bus tour of mid-century modern houses and buildings in the county on Sunday, October 8 from 1 to 3:30 p.m. The event is being organized with Docomomo-DC, the Potomac Valley chapter of the American Institute of Architects and the Bender Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington as part of Docomomo-US National Tour Day.
The bus tour will be led by preservation planner and architectural historian Clare Lise Kelly, author of the Planning Department’s award-winning book, Montgomery Modern: Modern Architecture in Montgomery County, Maryland, 1930-1979.
The tour will explore the Montgomery County work of Cohen, Haft & Associates, a leading modernist architecture firm in the Washington, DC area, distinguished for designs integrated with their natural settings, including Sumner Village, Whitehall Apartments, B’nai Israel and Paint Branch Unitarian Church. Founded in 1958 by architects Jack Cohen and Leonard Haft–and later known as Cohen and Haft, Holtz, Kerxton, Karabekir & Associates –the award-winning firm designed more than 200,000 housing units within the region during an 18-year period.
On the tour itinerary are the contemporary houses of The Hilltop (1967) on Seven Locks Road and Potowmack Preserve (1970) in Potomac, MD; as well as Rockville’s Charles E Smith Community Service Center campus (1969), which includes the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington, Jewish Social Services Agency and Hebrew Home for the Aged.
Bus pickup and drop-off will be at the Bender Jewish Community Center (6125 Montrose Road, Rockville, MD), where the concluding reception will be held.
Tickets for the tour will be available starting in late August. Space is limited, so interested parties are advised to reserve early. For more information, see the Planning Department’s Montgomery Modern website, www.montgomeryplanning.org/montgomerymodern.