page_title: Enda Mariam Cathedral, Asmara
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Enda Mariam Cathedral, Asmara / Description
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: Enda Mariam nel 1930
context_page_description: Enda Mariam Cathedral is an Eritrean Orthodox church in Asmara, Eritrea. The cathedral is located on Arbate Asmara Street.
context_section_description: The church (in a simple wooden structure) was present in Asmara since the late XIX century. In the early 1930s, the Italian governor of Asmara ordered to create an improved structure with modern building materials and under the supervision of Italian architects.
  In its present rationalist/modernist style, the church dates from 1938, when an unknown Italian architect, added the upper portions of the two flanking towers and the modernistic treatment of the façade to the 1920 form designed by Ernesto Gallo. The 1920 form has also been attributed to Odoardo Cavagnari, who designed Asmara's Opera and Asmara's futuristic Fiat Tagliero service station, and who was Asmara's Chief of Public Works,
  Both the central block and the two large freestanding square towers that flank it are built in alternate layers of brick and stone, emulating the layers of wood and stone of Aksumite architecture, a technique that has been for centuries in use in the Eritrean highlands. The protruding wooden support beams in these structures have been named "monkey heads".
caption: The church just before the Italian additions
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