In a city dominated by the presence of the Catholic Church in the form of its Spanish colonial missions, it is perhaps appropriate to find a spectacular synagogue designed using decidedly Spanish architectural decoration. New York City architect Albert S. Gottlieb served as a consultant to Seutter and Simons; the latter was a member of the temple congregation. The massing of the building combines a staged rectilinear mass surmounted by a low dome covered in terra-cotta tiles. The terra-cotta cornice line of the entrance facade has an unusual cresting of shells, a favorite Spanish motif. The interior of the temple is spacious and simply detailed, with the great dome supported on pendentives and the walls clad in marble up to the spring line of the arches.
Renovations in 1983 included the addition of the Barshop Auditorium. In 2003 the twenty-seven-foot-square domed Dreeben Family Pavilion, designed by Marmon Mok, was connected to the main temple with a limestone west wall in emulation of Jerusalem's Western Wall and sited to face Jerusalem. Placed on its interior north and south glass walls are wooden images of the Tree of Life and the seven branches of the Menorah.