Architectural Style
cast ironGlossary Term [1], were put to use in the reinterpretation of traditional styles. Jews were not immune from the debate amongst architectural experts as to which of the historical styles would be most appropriate to express their collective identity: ClassicalGlossary Term [2], RomanesqueGlossary Term [3], GothicGlossary Term [4] or RenaissanceGlossary Term [5]. ByzantineGlossary Term [6] and even Assyrian and Mogul-inspired styles, sporting domes, turrets and minarets, made a confident statement, indicative of the Jews' supposedly eastern origins. Large synagogues featured lavish interiors, awash with multi-coloured decoration in paint, stencilling and mosaic. Orientalism in synagogue architecture began in the German lands in the 1830s but by the late nineteenth century had found echoes all over Europe.