Santo Domingo Church

This guide to Santo Domingo Church in Santiago opens with a question its builders wrestled with for two centuries: why did three earlier churches on this spot collapse in earthquakes, in 1595, 1647 and around 1730? It follows master stonemason Juan de los Santos Vasconcellos's 1747 rebuild in precision-cut ashlar stone, worked by a team of imported Portuguese masons, and architect Joaquín Toesca's lighter brick-and-stucco towers added decades later. Listen for what makes the pale stone wall beside the entrance different from anything the earlier builders tried.