COVER STORY : Generations of craftsmen keep biblical stories alive in stained-glass masterpieces.

In the hushed atmosphere of a house of worship, dimly lit sanctuaries give way to brilliantly colored stained-glass windows. Even a nonbeliever can’t help but fall under the spell of blazing glass visions that come alive with the aid of natural light to inspire us with their beauty and their stories.

Since the Middle Ages, churches have employed artists to illuminate the minds and spirits of the faithful with stained-glass windows. Fragments of windows believed to date from the 9th and 10th centuries still exist.

The oldest complete stained-glass windows to survive are in the cathedral in the ancient town of Augsburg, Germany. Made in the 11th Century, the five windows characterize Old Testament figures--Moses, David, Daniel, Hosea and Jonas--the remains of a longer series. Each is more than 8 feet tall.

A window crafted around 1210-35 in France has even found its way to the San Fernando Valley. On view in the museum at Forest Lawn Memorial-Park in Glendale, it depicts King Charlemagne, king of the Franks and emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

Three 10-foot high, pointed or lancet windows made around 1535-40, also from France accompany the king in the museum. They illustrate the New Testament figures of Mary and Elizabeth, the Annunciation, and John the Baptist and Mary Magdalene. These windows were originally brought to the United States by William Randolph Hearst.

At this end of the millennium, a new window is being dedicated tonight at Valley Beth Shalom temple in Encino. Surprisingly, the techniques of making stained glass are much the same as they were in medieval times.

“It’s a very low-tech activity. You almost could do it without electricity,” said David Plachte-Zuieback, who with his wife, Michelle, has spent the past 2 1/2 years making two windows for Valley Beth Shalom.

“The most modern invention is the glass cutter, and it came about in the 15th Century,” said Bill Judson, a member of the fifth generation to work in the Judson Studios, designers and craftsmen of stained glass in Los Angeles since 1897.

“When I hold the glass cutter in my hands, it’s like I’m holding hands with the past,” said Elly Sherman, an artist and a poet who creates poetry books out of glass.

Sherman was an acquaintance of the late stained-glass artist, Frenchman Roger Darricarrere (1915-1984), who designed and made several windows for religious sanctuaries throughout the Valley.

“He widened the horizon of what you could do with stained glass,” said Clyde Reimann. A glass cutter in Darricarrere’s studio, he is now a project manager at the Judson Studios.

Not only did Darricarrere move away from the traditional figurative style to create abstract images of biblical events, but he also combined leaded glass with faceted glass in his compositions. Faceted glass is usually about one-inch thick. Chipped on the surface, it is set into concrete or epoxy resin. Reimann said Darricarrere made all of his own chunk glass.

Darricarrere’s piece de resistance was “Christ, the Light of the World,” which is now in St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church in Granada Hills. The 42-by-10 1/2-foot window, originally designed for the chapel at the 1964 New York World’s Fair, contains 14,000 pieces of glass and one ton of lead.

“It was a totally new experience as far as stained-glass was concerned, and a real joy to work on,” said Reimann, who added that the project took about six months to design, make the glass and construct the window. “He piled that thing in his truck, and drove it clear across country.”

The window takes viewers on a vibrant journey from the creation of the world to the fall of man, the Nativity and Baptism of Christ, the betrayal by Judas, the Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension and finally to a new heaven and Earth.

Darricarrere used deep violet to suggest the darkness before the creation of the world, orange and yellow for the new universe. Red elements represent the serpent; a golden stroke of color signals the birth of the Son of God; white conveys Resurrection and Ascension. When the fair ended, the congregation of St. Stephen’s had the window shipped in sections back to California, and installed it in its new sanctuary in 1966.

Another example of Darricarrere’s abstract work can be found at St. Mel Catholic Church in Woodland Hills. His stained-glass in concrete adorn the chapel and one of his huge windows illuminates the choir loft; these share space in the church with a series of traditional windows by John Stich that illustrate Christ’s trial and Crucifixion. The Stich windows, done in vibrant jewel-tone colors, line the east and west sides of the church.

In the almost 100-year existence of the Judson Studios, Bill Judson estimates that the studio has completed more than 1,000 stained-glass window projects. It was established by three Judson brothers and their father, artist William Lees Judson. By 1900, he had organized and become the first dean of USC’s College of Fine Arts and Architecture. He built the college’s original home in Highland Park, which now houses the Judson Studios.

Today, his great-grandson Walter and great-great-grandson Bill run the studio, which has made numerous stained-glass windows for churches in the Valley. Currently, the 15-member Judson Studios staff is involved on projects for the Church of the Valley in Van Nuys, First Presbyterian Church in Granada Hills, St. Nicholas Episcopal Church in Encino, Prince of Peace Episcopal Church in Woodland Hills and Toluca Lake United Methodist Church in North Hollywood. The latter church contains several windows that portray biblical stories.

“That job started in 1958,” Bill Judson said. “We’re now cutting a hole in a wall for a new window.” The new addition, from the Old Testament, depicts King David, playing a harp, with a sling and stone at his feet.

In a year’s time, the studio creates windows for 20 to 40 churches, according to Walter Judson. These range in price from $100 to $1,000 per square foot, depending on the quality of the glass and the complexity of the design.

A fine illustration of the Judsons’ use of faceted glass is a 36-foot-high window in the balcony of Glendale Presbyterian Church. Completed in 1974, the Great Window, with its Pentecost theme, is dominated by a large figure of Christ. Populated with other biblical figures and symbols, and people of different ethnic backgrounds from our time, its base is the trunk of a tree of life.

The Plachte-Zuieback’s elegant tree of life window in the Bernard and Eva Lopaty Chapel at Valley Beth Shalom is rooted in the Torah or Old Testament. Above the ark located in the center of the window, it says of the Torah in Hebrew: “It is a tree of life to those who hold fast to it.”

“The initial sense that we wanted to portray is a peaceful feeling, like you were in the Garden of Eden,” Michelle Plachte-Zuieback said.

Made from more than 20,000 pieces of glass, many of them shades of green, pink and purple, the tree has 613 leaves representing the number of commandments in the Torah.

Within the tree, Hebrew letters refer to primordial chaos, the power of speech and the Ten Commandments, among other themes. Ten circles that radiate out--like circles formed from pebbles thrown onto a pond--represent the Jewish mystical interpretations of the creation of the universe.

Double helixes on both sides of the composition include the name of every portion of the Torah. Ladders allude to Jacob’s ladder, which connects the heaven with the Earth in the Torah. The columns on either side of the ark symbolize the first temple, and depict all the materials that God requested of the Israelites to build the original tabernacle. Menorahs on top of the columns were designed by Michelle Plachte-Zuieback to embody the original menorah.

“We wanted you to be able to have an intuitive response to it just by walking in without knowing anything, but the more you know, the more you can realize about what’s in the window,” David Plachte-Zuieback said. The Plachte-Zuieback’s newer window at Valley Beth Shalom says, in big Hebrew letters, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

The letters illuminate a procession of peoples that represent the 70 nations described in the Torah. “There is another idea that says the Torah has 70 faces meaning that everything in the Torah has 70 different interpretations. So we made 140 characters in the words,” David Plachte-Zuieback added.

The Plachte-Zuiebacks took five months to construct this window in their Santa Rosa studio out of “by far the finest glass that’s available today,” David Plachte-Zuieback said. “To get pink glass, they have to use actual gold in the process of making it. It makes the glass very expensive, but you just cannot match the quality of it.”

Speaking of his and his wife’s window, but in essence for all finely made stained-glass windows, David Plachte-Zuieback said: “When you see something that has this beautiful degree of transparency, that changes color depending upon the direction of the light, that just lets light come in in such a wonderful way, you do respond to it.”

Where to Go

If you would like to take a tour of stained glass in the Valley, these are the location of the churches and temples mentioned in the story. Forest Lawn Memorial-Park, 1712 S. Glendale Ave. Glendale Presbyterian, 125 S. Louise St., Glendale. St. Mel Catholic Church, 20870 Ventura Blvd., Woodland Hills. St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church, 15950 Chatsworth St. Toluca Lake United Methodist, 4301 Cahuenga Blvd., North Hollywood. Valley Beth Shalom, 15739 Ventura Blvd., Encino.

Here’s a sampling of other locations to see stained-glass windows. These locations have examples of work by Roger Darricarrere: Temple Judea, 5429 Lindley Ave., Tarzana. Our Lady of Lourdes, 10321 Tujunga Canyon Blvd., Tujunga. These locations have examples of Judson Studios windows: Church of the Valley, 14602 Kittridge, 6565 Vesper Ave., Van Nuys First Presbyterian Church of Granada Hills, 10400 Zelzah Ave. First Presbyterian Church of Van Nuys, 14701 Friar St. First Lutheran Church of Glendale, 1300 E. Colorado Blvd. Prince of Peace Episcopal Church, 5700 Rudnick Ave., Woodland Hills. St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 14646 Sherman Way, Van Nuys St. Nicholas Episcopal, 17114 Ventura Blvd., Encino These venues have examples of non-religious stained-glass windows: Northridge Hospital Chapel, 18300 Roscoe Blvd., Northridge. The Wild Flower, 8300 Tampa Ave., Northridge, a flower shop.