The
Cathedral of the Madeleine is the primary cathedral
for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City. The Romanesque
cathedral was designed architects, by Carl M. Newhausen and Bernard
O. Mecklenburg. Salt Lake City's first bishop, Reverend Lawrence
Scanlan presided over the construction which began in 1899. Construction
of the church took ten years and cost $344,000.00, a substantial
sum at the time.
Though Romanesque
on the exterior, the interior is Spanish gothic and wasn't fully
completed until 1917. Designed by John Theodore Comes of Pittsburgh,
the leading American church architect of his time, the goal was
to update and beautify the rather plain interior of the church.
Renovations and restoration of the interior were completed in the
early 90's to bring the cathedral up to new church standards. With
the exception of the Tympanum (the triangular decoration over the
arched doorways), the exterior is very near its original appearance.
Cathedral
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