Model of Cathedral Is Unveiled

With a 120-foot-high bell tower and a giant crucifix built over its hilltop entry, the new Roman Catholic cathedral proposed for downtown Los Angeles is being designed to be noticed.

“One of the purposes of the cathedral is to serve as an inspiration to people. And of course, the more easily they can see it, the more readily they will be inspired,� Cardinal Roger M. Mahony said Monday at the public unveiling of a preliminary model.

The ceremony at the future construction site also marked the archdiocese’s formal acquisition of the 5.8-acre property just south of the Hollywood Freeway for $10.85 million. Mahony said that the hilly site allows a grander cathedral than would have been possible at the original location half a mile away, where the 120-year-old St. Vibiana’s stands shuttered and awaiting an uncertain fate.

The wooden model by Spanish architect Jose Rafael Moneo lacks stylistic details. But in general, it shows Latino-flavored courtyards, plazas and colonnades on the former county-owned parking lot bounded by the freeway, Grand Avenue, and Temple and Hill streets.

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Under Moneo’s plan, the 43,000-square-foot Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels would seat at least 2,600 worshipers and command the hilltop on Grand Avenue. The cathedral would have powerful vertical geometric shapes. The roof would slant upward, reaching 80 feet even as the hill descends beneath the building. A 35-foot-high crucifix is expected to be constructed above the main entry, facing a three-acre mid-block plaza.

The plaza would be used for grand processions and holiday celebrations as well as providing a retreat for downtown workers and visitors. According to the model, the plaza’s perimeter would be lined with Spanish Mission-style colonnades with roofs to protect pedestrians from sun and rain.

The most prominent feature of the complex design is a free-standing bell tower in a meditation garden at the property’s northwest corner. At 120 feet high, it would be visible from the adjacent freeway and from miles away in Hollywood and East Los Angeles, church officials said.

The rectory residence and the archdiocese meeting center would front on Hill Street over underground parking. Those two rectangular buildings would have courtyards.

Moneo’s design work will proceed quickly and construction could begin in early 1998, Mahony said. The cardinal’s goal is to dedicate the cathedral on Sept. 4, 2000, the feast day of Our Lady of the Angels.

At Friday’s ceremony, Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan called the plans “a giant step forward in the renaissance of downtown Los Angeles.� County Supervisor Gloria Molina agreed and noted how nice it will be for a new building to replace a parking lot, “instead of what we usually do, which is the reverse.�

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Also present were five protesters from the Catholic Workers soup kitchen, who contend that the $50 million in donations for the cathedral should aid the poor instead. They carried a large banner that proclaimed: “Spend God’s Money on God’s Poor.�

Mahony turned his lectern around so that television cameras did not show the protesters’ banner while he talked. He insisted that using the donations for construction would not harm the archdiocese’s many charitable programs.

The church bought the property in an arrangement designed to avoid a public auction, officials said. Acting as middleman, the city of Los Angeles’ Community Redevelopment Agency purchased the property from the county for $10.85 million and sold it for the same price to the archdiocese.

Mahony originally wanted to tear down earthquake-damaged St. Vibiana’s at 2nd and Main streets and build a cathedral there. But demolition plans were at least temporarily halted by preservationists’ legal victories, and the archdiocese was not able to acquire adjacent land it needed.

The archdiocese wants to sell the St. Vibiana’s property for about $5 million. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Conservancy and the USC School of Architecture are studying ways to save the old cathedral for some secular purpose such as a museum, school or office.