"A house without a woman is like a rudderless ship." {sephardic saying} (Lazar 146).
The most important building in Sephardic architecture is the synagogue. The synagogue had become very important in Jewish life, after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, as a focal point of prayer.
In 1391, the Christians attacked all Sephardic communities and destroyed almost all the synagogues, as well as the rest of Jewish life (Stamfer 61). Before their destruction, their had been hundreds of synagogues in Spain, but today only eighty remain. Of these, only three exist without major changes. There are two in Toledo, Santa María la Blanca and La Sinagoga del Tránsito, and one in Cordoba. All of the synagogues these survived to the present day were converted into churches (Stamfer 63).
When they were new, many of the synagogues were ornamented with inscriptions in two or three languages. The structure of these synagogues, with a great hall, oriented towards Jerusalem and an arc, containing the sacred text, is visible modern synagogues today. For example, the 770 in New York has a very similar layout.
Below is a description of a common Sephardic synagogue:
There is a grand hall, whose wall is oriented towards Jerusalem; an arc holds the Torah. In front of the Arc is a pulpit, for reading the liturgy, which in the Sephardic tradition was usually in the middle of the hall. Seats for the congregation surround the pulpit and there is an oil lamp lit, at all times, somewhere. The women have a separate, reserved space to pray, often on an upper floor and covered by a veil (Romero 199).
The destruction and transformation of Sephardic synagogues represents the end of Jewish prosperity in Spain. Jewish life became treacherous after 1391, and after the expulsion of 1492, all of their properties were taken by the monarchy.
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