The name of the High Synagogue located in close vicinity of the Jewish Town Hall to which it pertained by its func­tion is associated with the fact that the house of prayer was not placed on the ground floor but on the first floor of the building. Originally, it was ac­cessible only from the first floor of the Town Hall and served for assem­blies of the seniors of the ghetto and the religious community and perhaps also for the sessions of the rabbi court. It was not until the adaptations at the turn of the century that the en­trance from the Town Hall was bricked and then a new entrance was made from Cervena Lane. According to written testimony in the Chronicle by David Gans, the synagogue was contracted by the lat­er head of the Jewish Town Mordecai Maisel to the architect Pancratius Roder. The space of the High Synagogue has a Renais­sance vault. The ground floor rooms have Renaissance vaults too. After the great fire in 1689 the synagogue was repaired

in the early 1690s by the architect Pavel Ignac Bayer. Also the women's gallery was constructed under his leadership. After another fire in 1754 only the burnt-out trusses of the roof were repaired. The tabernacle was adapted in 1691 in the spirit of the contemporary Baroque altar architecture. During the sanitary clearance period in the early 20th century the synagogue was incorporated in a block of new buildings. The east front was covered and the whole synagogue was overtopped by the construction of the huge towery corner house in Panzska street designed by the architects Ri­chard Klenka of Vlastimil and Frantisek Weyr which is often con­sidered by the general public to be a part of the High Synagogue. Hence, only the north front of the building over Cervena street remained open. We can make a picture of the appear­ance of the High Synagogue, espe­cially its east front, due to Langweil's model of Prague. Other adaptations of the syna­gogue took place in the 1960s and 1970s. Since 1950 the synagogue has been a part of the museum and in 1982 a permanent exhibition of the synagogal textiles from the Jewish Museum collections was installed here.