Meditation in the Midst of the City at Sao Paulo Catedral Metropolitana

The Sao Paulo Catedral Metropolitana that you see in the city today is not the original building – in fact, the roots of the Metropolitan Cathedral date as far back as 1589, when the tiny village of Sao Paulo decided that they wanted a church of their own. Instead, today’s cathedral is a result of several rebuilding efforts, the first being in 1764 when Sao Paulo became the seat of a diocese. The small church built in the 1700s lasted for several centuries until its destruction in 1911, when it was decided that something bigger and better was needed for the growing city.

What you see today is the Sao Paulo Catedral Metropolitana that was built under the guidance of the first archbishop of Sao Paulo, Duarte Leopoldo e Silva. The construction was begun in 1913 with the assistance of a German architect named Maximilian Emil Hehl, whose design for the cathedral evoked a Neo-Gothic architectural essence, and it was decided that the building of this church would only move as quickly as it needed to. As a result, it wasn’t finishing until 1967, around 40 years later!

Since it was the primary cathedral for the city, the building went through a great deal of use, but not much upkeep. In 2000 & 2002, the entire cathedral underwent a renovation project that repaired the building and completed several towers whose finishing touches hadn’t even been done back in 1967! Even more surprising was the discovery of the original 1912 plans for the building, which allowed the reconstruction to stay faithful to the original ideas.

As the largest church in Sao Paulo, the Sao Paulo Catedral Metropolitana is 92 meters high and 111 meters long. With the width at 46 meters, its frame is that of a Latin cross-style church, even possessing the traditional five aisles and nave with a 30 meter dome over the crossed sections. There’s no lack of seating here either: the cathedral can hold up to 8,000 people, and it is not a rare sight for the place to nearly fill to capacity on a busy Sunday.

Over 800 tons of rare and imported marble were used in the building of the Sao Paulo Catedral Metropolitana, with much of the marble going toward the creation of decorative, sculptural elements that were placed around the building’s interior. Perhaps the most impressive sight of all is the organ, which was built in 1954 by an Italian company. The organ is one of the largest in all of Latin America, and not only has 5 keyboards and 120 registers, but there are 12,000 pipes from which the sound is emitted! Also, each and every pipe mouth has a Gothic-style engraved relief – clearly, no expense was spared in the construction of this sacred building.

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