Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption
When the old cathedral of San Francisco burned in 1962, the archdiocese commissioned a church for a new age. The architect Pietro Belluschi, dean of architecture at MIT, and the Italian engineer Pier Luigi Nervi designed it together. It was dedicated in 1971.
The roof is made of eight hyperbolic paraboloids, curving surfaces of concrete that rise from the four corners and meet sixty metres overhead. Where they meet, four long strips of stained glass form a cross of coloured light across the ceiling, representing the four elements. Above the altar hangs a shimmering baldachin of thousands of thin aluminium rods. San Franciscans nicknamed the building “Our Lady of Maytag” for its resemblance to the agitator of a washing machine.
Pope Saint John Paul II visited in 1987. Its great organ, with its four thousand pipes, fills the vast space with music. From its windows there are views across the whole city.
- Built
- 1965–1971
- Style
- Modern (Belluschi and Nervi)
- Where
- San Francisco, California, United States
- Map
- Find it on OpenStreetMap
- Read about
- The Blessed Virgin Mary