On the Plaza de Bolívar of Manizales, in Colombia, the cathedral basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary is the fourth place of worship built on this spot. A chapel of straw and wood of 1849 was replaced in 1854 by a first parish church of wood, rammed earth and masonry, demolished in 1886 for earthquake damage. A second church, entirely in cedar wood, was built between 1888 and 1897 and became a cathedral around 1900, before being damaged by a fire on 3 July 1925 and completely destroyed by a second fire on 20 March 1926. Those years saw Manizales struck by three great fires that marked its urban history: that of 19 July 1922, which started in a candle factory; the most devastating, on 3 July 1925, which destroyed thirty-two blocks and two hundred and twenty-nine houses, the worst disaster in the city’s history, although the wooden cathedral survived it; and finally that of 20 March 1926, which destroyed another two blocks together with the cathedral itself, while the fire brigade, established only on 12 October 1925, still managed to save the building’s architectural drawings from the flames. From then on the city, until then built largely of wood and bahareque, adopted new building regulations in favour of iron and concrete, and the new cathedral was accordingly designed entirely in reinforced concrete, a construction technique still pioneering for the time. An international design competition, held in 1927 at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and coordinated by Miguel Gutiérrez of Manizales, was won by the architect Julien Polti (the surname also appears in the variant Polty in some sources, without the two spellings having been reconciled). Construction, entrusted to the Italian firm Papio Bonarda & Co., began with the laying of the foundation stone on 5 February 1928 and ended on 29 September 1939. Pope Pius XII raised it to a minor basilica in 1950 or 1951, depending on the source; it was declared a Colombian national monument in 1984. The cathedral is widely described as the tallest in Colombia and Latin America, as well as the tallest neo-Gothic church in the Americas, although the sources differ considerably on the exact height, with figures ranging from ninety-six to one hundred and nineteen metres depending on the measuring point. The “Corredor Polaco”, the viewpoint inside the central tower, was closed to the public in 1979 because of the deterioration of the wooden staircase and reopened in 2008 after the installation of a metal spiral staircase and a lift up to the second level. The stained glass, the work of several glassworks including Rambusch of New York and Guido Polloni of Florence, covers according to the sources between seven hundred and thirty and a thousand square metres, an extent not fully reconciled between the different estimates.
About the Cathedral
The Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary, on Plaza de Bolívar in Manizales, Colombia, is the fourth place of worship on this site, built 1928–1939 entirely in reinforced concrete after fire destroyed its wooden predecessor in 1926. It is widely regarded as the tallest cathedral in both Colombia and Latin America.
Key facts
- 3 July 1925 / 20 March 1926: the previous wooden cathedral is damaged, then destroyed, by fire.
- 1927: international design competition held at the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, won by architect Julien Polti.
- 5 February 1928 – 29 September 1939: current cathedral built entirely in reinforced concrete.
- 1950 or 1951: elevated to minor basilica by Pope Pius XII.
- 1984: declared a National Monument of Colombia.
- Its central tower observation deck, the “Corredor Polaco,” reopened to visitors in 2008 after a 1979 closure.
History
Manizales’ wooden predecessor cathedral, built in the 1890s, was destroyed in the second of three catastrophic fires that struck the city in the mid-1920s — the worst, in July 1925, leveled 32 city blocks, though it spared the cathedral, which then burned down in a separate fire eight months later. That trauma drove the city to abandon wood construction citywide and rebuild its cathedral entirely in reinforced concrete, a still-novel technique in the late 1920s, resulting in what is now widely considered Colombia’s and Latin America’s tallest cathedral.
What you see
An exposed grey reinforced-concrete Neo-Gothic facade rises into a tall central tower flanked by shorter corner towers, with rose windows and pointed arches throughout, and roughly 140 stained-glass windows produced by workshops in New York, Florence, and Colombia.
Practical information
- Opening hours: generally open daily outside services; the tower observation deck has separate visiting hours, check current times before visiting.
- Address: Plaza de Bolívar, Carrera 22 between Calles 22 and 23, Manizales, Colombia.
Getting there
The cathedral fronts Plaza de Bolívar, Manizales’s main square. GPS: 5.0675°N, 75.5174°W.
Nearby
- Plaza de Bolívar — Manizales’s central plaza, at the heart of the city’s historic core.
Sources
- Wikipedia (English and Spanish) — “Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary, Manizales”
- Cuerpo Oficial de Bomberos de Manizales — “Historia de los tres grandes incendios”
- La Patria (archivo) — “Historia de la Catedral Basílica de Manizales”
- Centro Histórico de Manizales — cathedral building record.
- Semana — coverage of the cathedral’s observation tower.
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