Spanish Synagogue

The Spanish Synagogue (Španělská synagoga) is the most recently built and most visually spectacular of Prague's six surviving Josefov synagogues, completed in 1868 on the site of the city's oldest house of prayer — the Altschul, which dated to at least the 12th century. Built for Prague's Reform Jewish community by architects Vojtěch Ignác Ullmann and Josef Niklas, it takes its name not from a Sephardic congregation but from its extraordinary Moorish Revival interior, modelled on the Alhambra in Granada: every surface is covered in gilded stucco arabesques, geometric ornament, and richly coloured stained glass, creating one of the most lavishly decorated interiors in Prague. Today it houses the permanent exhibition Jews in the Bohemian Lands, 19th–20th Centuries — covering emancipation, the Czech-Jewish movement, the Holocaust, and figures such as Franz Kafka, Gustav Mahler, and Sigmund Freud — and is a celebrated venue for classical concerts thanks to its exceptional acoustics.