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Arc de Triomf, Barcelona, 1888.

Moorish Revival or Neo-Moorish is one of the exotic revival architectural styles that were adopted by architects of Europe and the Americas in the wake of the Romanticist fascination with all things oriental. It reached the height of its popularity after the mid-nineteenth century, part of a widening vocabulary of articulated decorative ornament beyond classical and Gothic modes. Little distinction was made in European and American practice between motifs drawn from Ottoman Turkey or from Andalusia.

The "Moorish" garden structures built at Sheringham, Norfolk, ca. 1812, were an unusual touch at the time, a parallel to chinoiserie, but as early as 1826, Edward Blore used islamic arches, domes of various size and shapes and other details of Near Eastern Islamic architecture to great effect in his design for Alupka Palace in Crimea, a cultural setting that had already been penetrated by authentic Ottoman styles. By the mid-19th century, the style was adopted by the Jews of Central Europe, who associated mudejar architectural forms with the golden age of Jewry in medieval Muslim Spain. As a consequence, Moorish Revival spread around the globe as a preferred style of synagogue architecture.

In the United States, Washington Irving's travel sketch, Tales of the Alhambra (1832) first brought Moorish Andalusia into readers' imaginations; one of the first neo-Moorish structures was Iranistan, a mansion of P. T. Barnum in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Constructed in 1848 and demolished by fire ten years later, this architectural extravaganza "sprouted bulbous domes and horseshoe arches".^[1] In the 1860s, the style spread across America, with Olana, the painter Frederic Edwin Church's house overlooking the Hudson River, Castle Garden in Jacksonville and Nutt's Folly in Natchez, Mississippi usually cited among the more prominent examples. After the American Civil War, Moorish or Turkish smoking rooms achieved some popularity. There were Moorish details in the interiors created for the Havemeyer residence on Fifth Avenue by Louis Comfort Tiffany. In 1937 the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota added minarets and Moorish domes that are unusual because the polychrome decorations are made out of corn cobs of various colors assembled as mosaic tiles are to create patterns. The 1891 Tampa Bay Hotel, whose minarets and Moorish domes are now the pride of the University of Tampa, was a particularly extravagant example of the style. Other schools with Moorish Revival buildings include Yeshiva University in New York City.

Although Carlo Bugatti employed Moorish arcading among the exotic features of his furniture, shown at the 1902 exhibition at Turin, by that time the Moorish Revival was very much on the wane everywhere but Imperial Russia, where the shell-encrusted Morozov House in Moscow (a stylisation of a Portuguese palace in Sintra) and the Neo-Mameluk palaces of Koreiz exemplify the continuing development of the style, and in Bosnia, where the Austrian government commissioned a range of Neo-Moorish structures. This included application of ornamentations and other Moorish design strategies neither of which had much to do with prior architectural direction of indigenous Bosnian architecture. Post office in Sarajevo for example follows distinct formal characteristics of design like clarity of form, symmetry, and proportion while the interior followed the same doctrine. Library in Sarajevo is an example of Pseudo Moorish architectural language using decorations and pointed arches while still integrating other formal elements into the design.

In Spain, the country conceived as the place of origin of Moorish ornamentation, the interest in this sort of architecture fluctuated from province to province. The main stream was called Neo-Mudéjar. In Catalonia, Antoni Gaudí's profound interest in Mudéjar heritage governed the design of his early works, such as Casa Vicens or Astorga Palace. In Andalusia, the Neo-Mudéjar style gained belated popularity in connection with the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929 and was epitomized by Plaza de España (Seville) and Gran Teatro Falla in Cádiz. In Madrid, the Neo-Mudéjar was a characteristic style of housing and public buildings at the turn of the century, while the 1920s return of interest to the style resulted in such buildings as Las Ventas bull ring and Diario ABC office.

Moorish Revival Theaters in America

Theatres outside the United States

Theater	Photo	City and State	Country	Architect	Date
State/Forum Theatre		Melbourne, Victoria	Australia	Bohringer, Taylor & Johnson	1929
Eastern Arcade (former Palace/Metro Theatre)		Melbourne, Victoria	Australia	Hyndman & Bates	1894 (demolished in 2008)

Moorish revival synagogues

Europe

Munich synagogue, by Friedrich von Gärtner, 1832 was the earliest Moorish revival synagogue (destroyed on Kristallnacht)

Semper Synagogue, by Gottfried Semper, Dresden, 1839–40 (destroyed on Kristallnacht)

Leopoldstädter Tempel, Vienna, Austria, 1853-58 (destroyed on Kristallnacht)

Dohány Street Synagogue, Budapest (Hungary), 1854-1859

Leipzig synagogue 1855 (destroyed on Kristallnacht)

Glockengasse synagogue, Cologne, Germany, 1855-61 (destroyed on Kristallnacht)

Tempel Synagogue, Cracow, Poland, 1860-62

Spanish Synagogue, Prague, 1868

Rumbach Street synagogue, Budapest, Hungary, 1872

Czernowitz Synagogue, Czernowitz, 1873

Great Synagogue of Florence, Tempio Maggiore, Florence, 1874-82

Princes Road Synagogue, Liverpool, England, 1874

Manchester Jewish Museum, built as a Sephardic synagogue, Manchester, England, 1874

Great Synagogue in Pilsen, Pilsen, Bohemia, Czech Republic, 1888

The Grand Choral Synagogue, St. Petersburg, Russia, 1888

Prešov synagogue, Prešov, Slovakia, 1898

Košice synagogue, Košice, Slovakia, 1899, interior of Rundbogenstil building

Sarajevo Synagogue 1902

Jubilee Synagogue, Prague, Czech Republic, 1906

Prešov, Slovakia

United States

Isaac M. Wise Temple,( also known as the Plum Street Temple) Cincinnati, Ohio, 1865

Congregation Rodeph Shalom, Philadelphia, 1866 (no longer standing)

Temple Emanu-El, on Fifth Avenue at 43rd Street, Congregation Emanu-El of the City of New York built in 1868, designed by Leopold Eidlitz, assisted by Henry Fernbach, (no longer standing)

Temple B’nai Sholom, Quincy, Illinois, 1870

Central Synagogue, Upper East Side, Manhattan, New York, 1872

Vine Street Temple, Nashville, Tennessee, 1874

B'nai Israel Synagogue (Baltimore), Maryland, 1876

Temple Adath Israel, Owensboro, Kentucky, 1877

Prince Street Synagogue (Oheb Shalom,) Newark, New Jersey, 1884

Eldridge Street Synagogue, Lower East Side, Manhattan, New York, 1887

Congregation Beth Israel of Portland, Oregon, 1888 (no longer standing)

Park East Synagogue, Upper East Side, Manhattan, New York, 1889

Gemiluth Chessed, Port Gibson, Mississippi, 1891

Temple Beth-El, Corsicana, Corsicana, Navarro County, Texas, 1898-1900

Ohabei Shalom, Brookline, Massachusetts, 1925

Congregation Ohab Zedek , Upper West Side, Manhattan, New York, 1926

Congregation Rodeph Shalom, Philadelphia, 1928

Shriners Temples

The Shriners, a fraternal organization, often chose a Moorish Revival style for their Temples. Architecturally notable Shriners Temples include:

• New York City Center, now used as a concert hall

• Medinah Temple, Chicago, built by architects Huehl and Schmidt in 1912.

• Tripoli Shrine Temple, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1929.

Sources

• Naylor, David, Great American Movie Theaters, The Preservation Press, Washington D.C., 1987
• Thorne, Ross, Picture Palace Architecture in Australia, Sun Books Pty. Ltd., South Melbourne, Australia, 1976

Notes

Assorted examples

Great Synagogue, Plzeň (Czech Republic)	Dohány Street Synagogue, Budapest (Hungary)	National Library, Sarajevo (Bosnia)	Gran Teatro Falla, Cádiz (Spain)
The Isaac M. Wise Temple, Cincinnati, Ohio	Santa Fe, New Mexico	Hunt & Burns, Architects	1912
Scottish Rites Temple	Sofia Synagogue (Bulgaria)	Palace of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)	The Grand Choral Synagogue, St. Petersburg (Russia)

External links

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Moorish Revival architecture