page_title: Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine
section_title: Architecture
hierarchical_section_title: Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine / Architecture
caption_attribution_description: Español: Catedral de San Agustín, San Agustín, Florida, Estados UnidosEnglish: St. Augustine Cathedral, St. Augustine, Florida, USA
context_page_description: The Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine is a historic cathedral in St. Augustine, Florida, and the seat of the Catholic Bishop of St. Augustine. It is located at 38 Cathedral Place between Charlotte and St. George Streets. Constructed over five years, it was designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark on April 15, 1970. Its congregation, established in 1565, is the oldest Christian congregation in the contiguous United States.
context_section_description: The cathedral's eclectic facade is a combination of Spanish mission and Neoclassical styles. Spanish mission features include curving bell gables, limited fenestration, clay roof tiles, a semicircular tympanum, prominent statuary niche, and comparatively unadorned walls. Neoclassical details surround the entry door; an entablature embellished with triglyphs is topped with a broken pediment above and supported by pairs of Doric columns below.
  On April 12, 1887, just as fire had destroyed previous church buildings in St. Augustine, the structure burned once again. The damage was not total, and the exterior shell of the building was still salvageable because the coquina blocks and cement used to build the masonry walls were fireproof. Reconstruction was begun with donations from Henry Flagler and funds raised by the congregation through a national appeal. The congregation hired New York City architect James Renwick, Jr., who happened to be staying in St. Augustine at the time, to restore the burned structure with many improvements being made in its restoration: the structure was enlarged and redesigned with a rectangular-cruciform layout and the addition of a transept to give the church a more European style.
  As the previous roof truss system was somewhat plain, Renwick devised a system that still relied on timber, but left an exposed ceiling with the decorated and varnished timbers visible. He also added a Spanish Renaissance-style bell tower which was not unique in the US; older Spanish mission churches in the west already had bell towers. The exposed bell had become a symbol of the Spanish mission, and that fact influenced the decision to build a bell tower in the Cathedral of St. Augustine. Four bells were placed in the tower, one of which was salvaged from a previous church and is inscribed with these words in Latin: "Sancte Joseph. Ora Pro Nobis. D 1682."; another of the bells was taken from a British cathedral.
  The last rebuilding of the cathedral in the years previous to its 1887–1888 restoration included an innovative idea for building materials. Since susceptibility to damage by fire had proven to be a problem with the wooden structures of the past, the notion arose to use a nonflammable material, and with a modest budget coupled with constraints of transport, a solution was not so clear. In the end, apparently using Native American construction knowledge, coquina stone was used for the exterior walls. Coquina is a sedimentary rock, created primarily from the deposition of seashells on the ancient shorelines. As St. Augustine is a city near the coast, the stone could be quarried and transported with a short distance to travel, and it was easy to quarry because the stone had considerable water content when quarried. After being removed from the ground, the stone hardens when exposed to air, but remains soft enough to be easily worked. This served the exact purpose that was required and was done with minimal effort and cost. The new portions of the building walls added in its reconstruction, however, as well as the bell tower, were made of cast-in-place concrete.
caption: Main facade with Neoclassical elements surrounding the doorway and Spanish mission styling at the gables
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