Los Angeles has been secularised as far from its original function and title as one could imagine. Its floridly reverent original name, El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles, has shrunk to the briefest vernacular LA. A madonna is a mega celebrity, angels abound in new-age book shops and the word spiritual might have something to do with billboards for bourbon. Many see it as a soulless city, but those who enjoy it do so for its energy, its diversity, its institutions and its hip confidence.
The part of the city I have become familiar with is associated with the cult of eternal life, the life of the body and face rather than anything which might lurk deeper than the skin. You can’t take your wealth with you; it seems to be saying, so you might as well spend it all on your present self. Perfect teeth, skin and nails are the norm, created and assisted by an army of associated professionals. This is exemplified in the recent motion picture Cold Mountain which tells of the incomparable suffering of men in the American civil war and the incomparably perfect beauty of our heroine, at one stage scrabbling around on her farm in the mud and gore, her Jessica’s Nails and her blue eye liner just perfect.
It therefore comes as a surprise—though, given its huge Latino population and its Spanish origins, it shouldn’t—that LA has a brand new cathedral, a striking monument in a sprawling city whose few grand buildings tend to be hard to see, let alone find and visit. Add this masterpiece by Spanish architect Jose Rafael Moneo to Richard Meier’s Getty Center and Frank Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall just across the road to any list of LA must-sees.
Our Lady Queen of the Angels stands on the crest of Bunker Hill, higher and grander than its predecessor, the Cathedral of St Vibiana, which was destroyed in the 1994 earthquake. She rides her site, a slope leads up and the steep side drops down to a river, as the great cathedral of Chartres rides hers; but this lady towers above the hard materials of downtown rather than open fields, and a torrent of traffic replaces the gentle River Eure.
This comparison sets the tone of the building and its great forecourt; you are comfortably at home here, the cathedral does all the right things, yet it constantly tells