Cathedral of Brasília

Oscar Niemeyer's cathedral: sixteen hyperboloid concrete columns reaching skyward, with blue stained glass in between.

Its shape is a hyperboloid, a curved form made from 16 concrete columns that each weigh about 90 tons. The columns bend upward and are said to look like hands reaching to the sky. Between them, blue, green, white and brown stained glass fills the gaps. The building holds up to 4,000 people.

Entering the cathedral

Visitors do not walk through a front door: they enter through a dark tunnel that passes under a reflecting pool and then step out into a bright space with a glass roof. The pool, 12 metres wide and 40 centimetres deep, surrounds the roof and helps to cool the building. Outside stand four bronze sculptures of the Evangelists, each 2.5 metres tall, and a separate bell tower 20 metres high.

Art inside

The roof is made of 16 fibreglass pieces fitted between the pillars. Underneath hangs a 2,000-square-metre stained glass work made in 1990 by Marianne Peretti. Three sculpted angels are suspended by steel cables above the nave, and the baptistery walls are covered with ceramic tiles painted in 1977 by Athos Bulcão. Outside the cathedral, the offices of the archdiocese were added in 2007 and connect to it underground.

On the globe

The model shows sixteen curving concrete columns reaching upward, with blue stained glass between them.