Before architect John Cetra could design the new Lincoln Square Synagogue, he decided that he needed to find the truth of the apparent contradiction within the phrase “modern Orthodox.”

Lincoln Square is the first new synagogue built on the West Side of Manhattan since the construction of the original Lincoln Square Synagogue in 1970. Jewish religious spaces, unlike their Roman Catholic counterparts, are not required to follow strict guidelines and so can be built according to the taste of the architect and congregation.

“I’m not Jewish, so it was important for me to understand the people who are going to be using this building,” he said, “to find out what their motivation was for what they would like to see in the building and really try to get under their skin with what they were trying to achieve.”

So Mr. Cetra, the principal of Cetra/Ruddy Architects, began attending services. “I wanted to get an appreciation of their rituals before deciding on the geometry of the space that we would create for them. There was so much movement happening all the time. I wanted this movement to be expressed within the building and even within the facade of the building.”

In the end, Mr. Cetra designed an undulating four-story glass façade for the new building at West 69th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, incorporating five horizontal bands meant as a tribute to the five books of the Torah and to invoke the “sensuousness” of people dancing. He said he hopes the glass façade will bathe the interior space in daylight and provide illumination onto the street at night. The façade is bookended by stone pillars with patterns similar to those found on the prayer shawls.

“As we developed this more and more, we were looking for opportunities to bring in symbolism in a way that wasn’t a campy interpretation but had more significance and more meaning,” Mr. Cetra said. “It was the combination of trying to create something unique for this congregation that embodies their spirit and their religion into a form that urbanistically addresses the street that it is located on.”

The author of “Synagogue Architecture in America: Faith, Spirit, and Identity,” Henry Stolzman, said, “There is no such thing as a prototypical synagogue. The goal is to make something that is decidedly a synagogue but still belongs in its setting. The challenge is how to make a sacred space which people will feel inspired by and comfortable in.”

The new 62,000-square-foot structure contains a new sanctuary for 425 people, a smaller study space for 125 congregants, and a 10,000-square-foot banquet space. The old Lincoln Square Synagogue became well-known for its circular seating arrangement, somewhat unusual for Orthodox synagogues.

“There is a lot of history in our current building. This is where the synagogue really grew and played such a significant role in the community,” Rabbi Shalom Morris said. “But it was time to upgrade.

The new synagogue, which will cost more than $20 million, is expected to be completed by the end of 2008.