NATIONAL CATHEDRAL, History

Hello, my name’s Marcy, and I’m your personal guide. Along with MyWoWo, I’d like to welcome you to one of the wonders of the world: Washington National Cathedral, the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.

It is the sixth largest cathedral in the world, and the second-largest in the United States. This place of worship of the Episcopal Church was completed after 83 years of construction, which began on 29 September 1907. It was inaugurated in 1990 by George Bush.

Although a number of important ceremonies had already taken place here before the inauguration, not all the chapels had been completed. In addition, the Cathedral suffered serious damage caused by an earthquake in 2011, and has just been restored.

Four architects worked on the building over the years. The original Neo-Gothic design was by George Frederick Bodley, while the landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted designed the area with the high altar and the presbytery. After Bodley’s death in 1907, one of his assistants made a number of changes to the original design, but work on the cathedral was halted during the First World War. When work recommenced, it was an architecture firm from New York that completed the project, maintaining the original idea, including the addition of the third tower and the extension of the large west facade....