The Spanish Synagogue will close on May 31 for approximately a year and a half

Prague - The Spanish Synagogue in Prague will close on May 31 for approximately a year and a half due to planned modernization of exhibitions and facilities. Visitors will be able to return in the last quarter of next year. The Jewish Museum announced this in a press release today. The synagogue is part of the visitor circuit of the Jewish Museum and is among the most visited places in Prague.

Currently, the synagogue features a permanent exhibition titled The History of Jews in Bohemia and Moravia in the 19th - 20th Century, created during the first significant renovation of the building from 1994 to 1998. The exhibition follows the fates of Jews in the Czech lands from the Josephine reforms to the post-war period, also covering the reconstruction of the Jewish quarter and paying special attention to the Holocaust and the Theresienstadt ghetto. The new form of the permanent exhibition, provisionally titled Jewish Emancipation, Shoah, and Post-War Czechoslovakia (1780 - Present), will thematically connect with the current exhibition.

During the modernization, rare collection items will be newly arranged, and multimedia and interactive elements are also planned. Interested visitors will be able to browse historical documents on touch screens, view photographs and artworks, or search a database of notable Jewish figures. The modern exhibition will also feature new technological and visitor facilities with barrier-free access.

The modernization has been in preparation for the past two years, and work will begin in July. The architectural solution has been developed by the Petr Franta architectural studio, with Arno Pařík as the author of the new permanent exhibition, while individual topics have been researched by the museum's scientific staff. The construction contractor will be the company Konsit.

For the Jewish Museum, this is the fourth similar project. In the past five years, it has renovated the Pinkas and Maisel synagogues and opened an Information and Reservation Center. The aim of transforming the permanent exhibitions is to adapt to current trends in museum presentations, technical possibilities, and visitor expectations.

The Spanish Synagogue is one of the most visited places in Prague. In 2017, 462,000 people visited it. It is the youngest synagogue in the Jewish quarter of Josefov. It got its name due to its impressive interior decoration in Moorish style, inspired by the famous Spanish Alhambra. It was consecrated 150 years ago. It was built as the temple of the Reformed Cult Society on the site of the Old School - the oldest prayer house of the ghetto from the 12th century. During the German occupation, the Spanish Synagogue became a storage place for items confiscated by the Nazis from Czech Jews. Since 1955, the building has been managed by the Jewish Museum.