St. Mary's Cathedral 東京カテドラル聖マリア大聖堂

It's time for cathedrals

If the design of the Sainte-Marie Cathedral is sober today, it has not always been the case. In fact, a first building was built in the same place in 1899 by students of French missionaries. It served as a chapel, with a more traditional Gothic architecture. In 1911, a reproduction of the grotto of Lourdes was built there by a French missionary. And it was in 1920 that the church finally obtained the status of a cathedral. It was completely destroyed in 1945 by a fire triggered by the American bombings of Tokyo. At the end of the war, it was the architect Kenzo Tange who took charge of its reconstruction . Note that the Peace Museum in Hiroshima, the Tokyo Metropolitan Building in Shinjuku, as well as the Fuji Television tower in Odaïba are also the works of Kenzo Tange.

A one-of-a-kind cathedral

Kenzo Tange leaves gothic architecture aside to embark on a project with a much more avant-garde aesthetic. The building is composed of eight curved concrete walls, 39 meters high , which are arranged in pairs: seen from the sky, they form a cross. The use of concrete, rather than stone or wood, is a reference to the Bible and more specifically to Psalm 18.3 “ The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer ”. The Cathedral of Sainte-Marie, 55 meters long, can accommodate 2,000 people within it, including 600 people seated . Its bell tower is more than 60 meters high! Inside, there is reinforced concrete, engraved so that it looks like wood. The ceiling is made of glass, so the light from the cathedral is natural . It changes at any time of the day, which adds to the mystical aura of the cathedral, whose architecture is designed to play the chiaroscuro card . Masses are held in Japanese. Meet at 6 p.m. on Saturday and at 8 and 10 a.m. on Sunday. In the basement chapel, masses are held every day at 7 a.m. and at 12 p.m. on Sundays.

Whether you are Catholic or not, the Sainte-Marie Cathedral is worth the detour: it is an architectural treasure, as only the city of Tokyo has the secret!