The New Cathedral from the Freeway

I played for a funeral in Hollywood this afternoon. This required driving through the middle of downtown L.A. on the 5/101 which I haven't done in a long time. So I got my first glimpse of the new Cathedral. It is built right up against the 5 and looms over that part of the freeway as it flows through the downtown and city hall area. I would say I probably got about 15 seconds of available viewing time as I went past, some of those 15 seconds being apportioned to paying attention to my driving. This does not prevent me giving my impressions.

The entire complex is much bigger than I had imagined. The colour is not nearly as ghastly as that article in the late lamented New Times led me to believe either. It's sort of a slightly darker adobe mission sort of colour. Not bad for California.

As a building it seemed huge and oppressive. As I said a few weeks ago, I am a native L.A. suburbanite (almost) and boxy, style-less churches are what I was raised with. But on this massive scale there is a sense of oppression which is not there in the smaller neighborhod churches. There is no lightness about it, at least from the freeway side.

There are three things that are good about it from the freeway side. Two huge crosses are visible to everyone. I think I read that at least one of them is illuminated at night. And since this is private property, there isn't much the ACLU can do about it. When heading west on the 5 you can also see a huge representation of Our Lady of Guadalupe looking down over the freeway. It seemed to me to be larger than life-sized and a very careful copy of the original. It is apparently angled slightly to face the east since I couldn't see it on my way back. Our Lady's self-portrait is a very welcome addition to the landscape of the downtown area.

The cathedral's website is here.