24 July 2013 / leggypeggy

Gobsmacked by the cathedral in Brasilia

artworks, bells, Brasilia, Brazil, capital, cathedrals, churches, Oasis Overland, Oscar Niemeyer, overland travel, sculptures, South America, stained glass, statues, travel

From the outside, the Metropolitan Cathedral looks just black and white

Brasilia’s Catedral Metropolitana sneaks up on you and hits you between the eyes.

From the outside, the hyperboloid building, which was designed by Oscar Niemeyer, seems to be just a black and white structure—16 brilliant white, flared concrete columns, that weigh in at 90 tons each, interspersed with acres of black fibreglass.

Near the entrance are four bronze statues of the evangelists, Matthew, Mark Luke and John (each with his own pigeon or two when we were there). Sculpted in 1968, these three-metre artworks are the work of Dante Croce.

Also out the front is a bell tower with four large bells donated by Spanish residents of Brazil.

All in all, it looks impressive but with no particular wow factor. Then you enter the dark tunnel that leads into the cathedral and you begin to realise how gobsmackingly beautiful and clever it all is.

Stained glass creates a slice of ‘heaven’. The lightest blue is the sky outdoors

What you see from the outside is merely the cathedral’s roof. Within there is a vast space flooded with light and capped with a 360-degree, suspended ceiling of stained glass in blues, greens, white, browns and glimpses of the actual sky.

Poor John and I (wearing our shorts like everyone else) sat in one of the back pews for a long time just admiring and trying to take in the design, colours, sky and space. Marianne Peretti created this 2000-square metres of ‘heaven’ in 1990, and all pieces were handmade.

Three angels suspended from the ceiling

Three metal angels hang from the centre of ceiling. Designed in 1970 by Alfredo Ceschiatti, in the collaboration with Dante Croce, the angels range in length and weight from 2.2 to 4.2 metres and 100 to 300 kilograms.

The cornerstone was laid in 1958, but once the presidential term of Juscelino Kubitschek (who spearheaded the development of the new capital) ended, the push to finish many structures in Brasilia stalled.

It seems Kubitschek wanted the cathedral to be ecumenical, and to be paid for by the state and open to all faiths. But future governments did not provide funding, and the building was eventually turned over to the Catholic Church to complete. The cathedral was consecrated in 1968 (still with no roof), and officially opened in 1970.

More of the 360-degree stained glass ceiling

The cathedral, which is also known as the Metropolitan Cathedral of Our Lady Aparecida, was extensively renovated over the last year, with work being done on the roof, stained glass, marble surfaces, angels, concrete and bell mechanisms.

P.S. We only had an afternoon in Brasilia, and Poor John and I already knew that the inner city of this created capital was well worth seeing. So we left the truck before it got to the hostel and hopped in a taxi so we could race into town and see as much as possible. As it turned out, we were the only people from the whole group who made it to the cathedral. How lucky we feel.

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