Ruggero and Arduino Berlam designed the Synagogue of Trieste, which was begun in 1908 and completed in 1912 under Austrian rule. It was meant to serve a growing Jewish community, which had almost 6,000 members in 1938, and it replaced four smaller prayer rooms dating from the mid-eighteenth century. An international design contest produced no result.
The article calls the style Romanesque Revival, a late Roman type found in fourth-century Syria. A brick dome rests on four marble pillars, and the main prayer room has three naves ending in an apse with a golden mosaic vault. The Torah ark has copper doors and a pink granite aedicule.
It closed in 1942 after the Fascist race laws. The Nazis used it to store seized art and books, and the hidden ritual silver survived. It reopened after the war.
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