Jeffery, your post on St. Aloysius and whether or not decomissioned Catholic churches should be torn down inspired me to do this post.
St. Vibiana Cathedral was the seat and mother church of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles until the mid-1990's when it was damaged extensively by the earthquake of May 1995. There was a lot of controversy as to whether or not it was worth repairing or if a new cathedral should be built. To make a long story short, St. Vibiana's was sold, a new (and down-right hideous) cathedral, Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral, was built, and St. Vibiana (now known simply as "Vibiana") was renovated and is now an events venue, wedding and reception site, and performing arts space. Overall, this doesn't sound too bad....but there have been some really really bad things held there, such as a fashion show where the models might as well have been completely nude. Yeah....
Here's some pictures...
Some pictures of what it looks like/goes on there today....
Interior, 1945
Exterior, 1885
Altar, 1940If you really want to see more, you can check out "Vibiana's" web site at http://www.vibianala.com/
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3 comments:
The whole thing makes me sick. One of the main reasons given for building the new one was that repairs after the earhtquake would cost too much. The total cost of repairing the old cathedral and converting it into a public spectacle was only a small fraction of the enormous amount it cost to build that damn rabbit warren.
An example from Cleveland, not sure what I think about re-use, but it's unsettling.
http://www.josaphatartshall.com
I think that is horrible and despicable, and even sacrilegious to use an old cathedral in such a way. The Church should have really kept it and fixed it!
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