When opened in 1866 as German's largest synagogue, the magnificent
and sumptuous Neue Synagogue was the symbol of the Jewish
community in Berlin.

Situated in the Scheunenviertel
district (Barn Quarter), it lies in the heart of the
then large Jewish district.
Construction of the 'New Synagogue' started in 1859 and it was completed
7 years later.
The design by Eduard Knoblauch, in a
neo-byzantine style with Moorish influences, was complicated
by the asymmetrical shape of the plot. State of the
art construction techniques were used to construct the
galleries and 50m high gilded dome.
During the infamous Kristallnacht pogrom on 9-10 November 1938,
the synagogue was desecrated by the nazis,

and it was
destroyed in 1943 by allied bombing. The building was
finally demolished in 1958 but it wasn't until after
the fall of the
Berlin Wall that the reconstruction started.
In May 1995, the reconstructed synagogue was finally completed, triggering a revival of the whole
Scheunenviertel district. It is
now a lively district with many restaurants and cafés.