Cathedral of Brasília

Niemeyer’s design, engineered by Joaquim Cardozo, won a 1958 competition and broke ground that September, four years before most of the new capital was built. Sixteen hyperboloid concrete ribs, cast off-site and weighing ninety tonnes apiece, splay upward from a buried base like two hands opening to the sky, framing a crown of glass forty-two metres across; because the nave sits almost entirely below the surrounding plaza, visitors descend through a dim entrance tunnel before emerging into the lit interior, a sequence Niemeyer intended as deliberate contrast. The structure was finished by 1960, but the cathedral was not formally dedicated until 31 May 1970, once its glazing was complete. Alfredo Ceschiatti’s suspended aluminium angel sculptures and Athos Bulcão’s ceramic-tiled baptistery were added over the following years, and Marianne Peretti’s 2,000-square-metre stained-glass scheme was finished only in 1990. Brazil declared the cathedral a national historic and artistic monument that same year, and it forms part of the Brasília UNESCO World Heritage Site inscribed in 1987.