San Cristobal Cathedral - La Habana, Cuba
Posted by: 
tatie
N 23° 08.469 W 082° 21.100
17Q E 361614 N 2559786
San Cristobal Cathedral is located in La Habana, Cuba.
Waymark Code: WMK50J
Location: Cuba
Date Posted: 02/13/2014
Views: 14
Don't miss this spectacular cathedral if you visit Old Habana.
"The Catedral de la Virgen María de la Concepción Inmaculada de La Habana (Cathedral of The Virgin Mary of the Immaculate Conception) is a Roman Catholic Cathedral and is the seat of Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino, the Cardinal Archbishop of Havana, Cuba. It is also dedicated to Saint Christopher (San Cristóbal), thus it is sometimes dubbed as Cathedral of Saint Christopher.
The construction of the cathedral was started by Jesuits in 1748 on the site of an earlier church and finished by Havana City in 1777. The cathedral is set in the former Plaza de La Ciénaga or Swamp Plaza, in a site where was gathered the runoff from the city.
The Cathedral is said to be the only example of a Baroque facade that was designed with asymmetrical features - one of the towers is wider than the other. This particular feature was conceived in order to allow the water that tended to accumulate on the plaza to freely flow through the streets during the colonial period, when it was built.
Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier famously described the Cathedral as "music set in stone". It is the most prominent building on the Plaza de la Catedral, in Old Havana."
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