The City Temple is the only one of Vienna’s more than 90 synagogues that was not destroyed in World War II.

Around 1810 the Dempfingerhof estate was purchased by several Jewish families and some of the rooms adapted for religious purposes. In little more than 10 years the premises were outgrown, so Joseph Kornhausel, a very prominent theater architect was commissioned to design a new building. Legal provisions required the façade had to resemble that of an ordinary residential building.

The interior was furnished in a neo-Greek style popular during that time. The twelve columns symbolize the twelve tribes of Israel. Above the doors of the Torah Ark, directly below the Ten Commandments, we see the eighth verse of psalm 16, “I keep the Lord before me always.”

Remodeling was carried out in the late 19th century. The City Temple is the only one of Vienna’s more than 90 synagogues to avoid destruction during the Reichskristallnacht, and is the city’s only preserved prewar synagogue. The building was fully rehabilitated in 1963. As of 2006 there were approximately 7,500 affiliated Jews living in Vienna and a roughly equal number non-affiliated.