page_title: Santiago Metropolitan Cathedral
hierarchical_section_title: Santiago Metropolitan Cathedral
caption_attribution_description: Español: Vista de lado de la Catedral Metropolitana de Santiago
context_page_description: Santiago Metropolitan Cathedral is the seat of the Archbishop of Santiago de Chile, currently Celestino Aós Braco, and the center of the archdiocese of Santiago de Chile. Construction of the neoclassical cathedral began in 1753 and ended in 1799. The architect was the Italian Gioacchino Toesca. Further alterations ordered at the end of the 19th century gave it its present appearance. Previous cathedrals in the archdiocese had been destroyed by earthquakes.
  The cathedral, located in the city's historic center, faces the northwest corner of Santiago's Plaza de Armas and stands near the Palacio Arzobispal de Santiago, the administrative center for the archdiocese. The cathedral is also close to the Parroquia El Sagrario, a Catholic temple and a Chilean national monument.
  Santiago Metropolitan Cathedral is of a Baroque style, with many ornaments, frescos, and gilded columns. Showing that architecture has layers of history, the two towers of the cathedral were added almost a whole century later.
  This cathedral being built 220 years ago didn't have the kind of technology or considerations that modern building today have. the main consideration being earthquakes.
context_section_description: Santiago Metropolitan Cathedral (Spanish: Cathedral Metropolitana de Santiago) is the seat of the Archbishop of Santiago de Chile, currently Celestino Aós Braco, and the center of the archdiocese of Santiago de Chile. Construction of the neoclassical cathedral began in 1753 and ended in 1799. The architect was the Italian Gioacchino Toesca. Further alterations ordered at the end of the 19th century gave it its present appearance. Previous cathedrals in the archdiocese had been destroyed by earthquakes.
  The cathedral, located in the city's historic center, faces the northwest corner of Santiago's Plaza de Armas  and stands near the Palacio Arzobispal de Santiago, the administrative center for the archdiocese. The cathedral is also close to the Parroquia El Sagrario, a Catholic temple and a Chilean national monument.
  Santiago Metropolitan Cathedral is of a Baroque style, with many ornaments, frescos, and gilded columns. Showing that architecture has layers of history, the two towers of the cathedral were added almost a whole century later.
  This cathedral being built 220 years ago didn't have the kind of technology or considerations that modern building today have. the main consideration being earthquakes. Since Chile is on the Atacama fault line, it experiences quite a lot of earthquakes. Large masonry buildings like the Metropolitan Cathedral weren't built with earthquake considerations, and since masonry has low tensile strength the building suffered damages and destruction due to the earthquakes. Due to all the destruction and rebuilding/remodeling the cathedral became a national historic monument in 1951.
  Because of all the damage due to earthquakes, tests were done to the structure of the building to see if any structural updates were necessary, which there were. Tests were needed to be done to carry out any sort of renovations or updates of the cathedral.
caption: The Cathedral at night
exif: {"Image Model": "Canon EOS REBEL T2i", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3.4", "Image DateTime": "2012:04:08 13:01:40", "Image ExifOffset": "348", "Image XPAuthor": "Alonso Jim\u00e9nez Quesada", "Image BodySerialNumber": "1322728499", "Image LensSpecification": "[18, 55, 0/0, 0/0]", "Image LensModel": "EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "648", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "14427", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/13", "EXIF FNumber": "7/2", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "1600", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:12:26 19:22:44", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:12:26 19:22:44", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "92511/25000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "361471/100000", "EXIF FocalLength": "18", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "65"}