Church of the Blessed Sacrament
Concrete basilica modeled on Sacre-Coeur, hiding a mosaic-lined crypt built years before the church above it.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Church of the Blessed Sacrament in Santiago follows architect Ricardo Larrain Bravo's promise to the Sacramentine fathers of a church to rival Paris's Sacre-Coeur, and the problem of a design that would take fifteen years to build while the priests wanted to say Mass right away. You'll hear how in 1911 Larrain built a crypt underground first, filling it with marble altars and gold Byzantine mosaics so worship could begin while the concrete giant above was still scaffolding. It traces the upper church's long rise through the 1920s, engineered by Frenchman Victor Auclair, and the 1985 earthquake that later toppled its cross.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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