the prayer room
The old synagogue at Avignon was destroyed by fire in 1845. It was replaced the following year by a new building designed by the architect Joseph-Auguste Joffroy. Its neo-classical rotunda set in a square building represents a deliberate break with tradition. The exuberant colours of the preceding century are now replaced by the rigour of white colonnades and sober furnishings in walnut. The specificities of the synagogue architecture of the Comtat - the double prayer rooms, the Rabbi’s tribune and the chair for the prophet Elijah - have disappeared, with the dispersion of the old Jewish communities and the immigration of Jews from Eastern Europe.