Chapinero
Gothic-revival basilica with twin towers, ribbed vaults and German stained glass, at the heart of a former shoemakers' district.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Chapinero in Bogotá traces the neighborhood's name back to a nineteenth-century cobbler who made sturdy wooden-soled shoes for people slogging through its once-muddy streets, and then turns to the Gothic-revival church that rose above them starting in 1875 under architect Julián Lombana. You'll hear how local builders who had likely never set foot in a European cathedral copied its ribbed vaults from scratch, and how the colored glass came shipped in from Germany. The guide follows the twenty-one-year build and the compromises the design had to make along the way.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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