Christ Church Cathedral
Neo-Gothic sandstone cathedral whose original stone spire sank and was replaced by a lightweight aluminum copy.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Christ Church Cathedral in Montreal tells how, in the late 1980s, the diocese leased the land beneath the church to developers, who sank concrete columns to bedrock and excavated a shopping mall out from under the entire building while services kept running inside, workers nicknaming it the floating church. It reaches further back to the 1850s, when architect Frank Wills died before construction began and the cathedral's original stone spire started tilting into Montreal's soft soil. You'll hear how riggers eventually dismantled that spire piece by piece. Look up at the tower before you step inside to see what replaced it.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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