When the previous synagogue on the Rue Grignan in Marseille was in disrepair and too small, a campaign began in 1855 to raise money for a new site. The design by the architect Nathan Salomon was approved in 1860 and the building finished in 1864.
The synagogue takes the basilica form more commonly associated with ancient Greece and Rome, and churches. It is built in the Romano-Byzantine style, and takes influence from the Synagogue de Nazareth, completed in Paris in 1852. A pulpit and an organ – both also associated more with Christian buildings than Jewish ones – feature inside, and the mix of Western and Oriental designs was chosen to reflect the diversity of the worshippers.
Saint-Georges de Boscherville Abbey is a former Benedictine abbey. It was founded in about 1113 by Guillaume de Tancarville on the site of an earlier establishment of secular canons and settled by monks from the Abbey of Saint-Evroul. The abbey church made of Caumont stone was erected from 1113 to 1140. The Norman builders aimed to have very well-lit naves and they did this by means of tall, large windows, initially made possible by a wooden ceiling, which prevented uplift, although this was replaced by a Gothic vault in the 13th century. The chapter room was built after the abbey church and dates from the last quarter of the 12th century.
The arrival of the Maurist monks in 1659, after the disasters of the Wars of Religion, helped to get the abbey back on a firmer spiritual, architectural and economic footing. They erected a large monastic building one wing of which fitted tightly around the chapter house (which was otherwise left as it was).