St. Mary's Cathedral (in ) is the seat of the

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

Archdiocese of Tokyo. It is located in the Sekiguchi neighborhood of Bunkyo, Tokyo, Japan.

History

The first cathedral of Tokyo was a wooden structure, built in 1899 in the Gothic style, on the behalf of French missionary interests. It survived the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923, but was destroyed during the air raids on Tokyo during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. The Catholics of Tokyo gathered in the ruins of the cathedral before, in 1947, its functions were moved to a

Quonset hut A Quonset hut is a lightweight prefabricated structure of corrugated galvanized steel with a semi-circular cross-section. The design was developed in the United States based on the Nissen hut introduced by the British during World War I. Hund ...

, before being moved to the first floor of an adjacent Catholic school building. Due to space limitations in the school building, St. Ignatius Church, Tokyo was used for diocesan services upon its completion in 1949. Additionally, the Church of Francis Xavier, which survived the war, was used as a

Pro-cathedral A pro-cathedral or procathedral is a parish Church (building), church that temporarily serves as the cathedral or co-cathedral of a diocese, or a church that has the same function in a Catholic missionary jurisdiction (such as an apostolic prefect ...

from 1953 to 1964."Archdiocese of Tokyo"
, retrieved 14 March 2010 To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the reintroduction of Catholicism to Japan, in 1960, the Archdiocese of Tokyo, with the support of the

Archdiocese of Cologne The Archdiocese of Cologne (; ) is a Latin Church archdiocese of the Catholic Church in western North Rhine-Westphalia and northern Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany. History At an early date Christianity came to Cologne with the Roman soldiers ...

, held a competition for the rebuilding of St. Mary's, with a 1962 deadline. The finalists in the competition were

Yoshirō Taniguchi was a Japanese architect. He was born in the city of Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan. He was a graduate of Tokyo University Department of Architecture and professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology from 1929–1965. As an architect, he crea ...

Kunio Maekawa was a Japanese architect and a key figure in Japanese postwar modernism. After early stints in the studios of Le Corbusier and Antonin Raymond, Maekawa began to articulate his architectural language after establishing his firm in 1935, mainta ...

, and the eventual winner,

Kenzō Tange was a Japanese architect. Born in Sakai and raised in China, Tange was inspired from an early age by the work of Le Corbusier and designed his first buildings under Imperial Japan. He first achieved recognition for his projects to reconstruct t ...

. Tange's entry was the only

cruciform A cruciform is a physical manifestation resembling a common cross or Christian cross. These include architectural shapes, biology, art, and design. Cruciform architectural plan Christian churches are commonly described as having a cruciform ...

one, and distinguished itself with the use of a thin-shell structure. Its design also incorporated visibly Japanese elements, such as an entrance via a

Lourdes Grotto A Lourdes grotto is a replica of the grotto where the Lourdes apparitions occurred in 1858, in the town of Lourdes in France, now part of the sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes. Some Lourdes grottos are almost identical reproductions of the scene o ...

, which recalled the traditional way to enter a temple: first through the

Torii A is a traditional culture of Japan, Japanese gate most commonly found at the entrance of or within a Shinto shrine, where it symbolically marks the transition from the mundane to the sacred, and a spot where kami are welcomed and thought to ...

, then the

Sanmon A or is the most important mon of a Japanese Zen Buddhist temple, and is part of the Zen '' shichidō garan'', the group of buildings that forms the heart of a Zen Buddhist temple.JAANUS It can be often found in temples of other denominations ...

, and down the

Sandō A in Japanese architecture is the road approaching either a Shinto shrine or a Buddhist temples in Japan, Buddhist temple.Iwanami Japanese dictionary, 6th Edition (2008), DVD version. Its point of origin is usually straddled in the first case ...

before reaching the

Honzon , sometimes referred to as a Gohonzon ( or ), is the enshrined main image or principal deity in Japanese Buddhism. The buddha, bodhisattva, or mandala image is located in either a temple or a household butsudan. The image can be either a statue ...

. Cardinal Archbishop Peter Doi was personally ambivalent to the design, and future archbishop

Peter Shirayanagi Peter Seiichi Shirayanagi (白柳誠一 ''Shirayanagi Seiichi''; 17 June 1928 – 30 December 2009) was a Japanese Catholic prelate who served as Archbishop of Tokyo from 1970 to 2000. He was made a cardinal in 1994, and also served as head of ...

reluctantly approved the plans. Construction commenced in April 1963, and ended in December 1964. In addition to the sanctuary, made up of eight shells forming a cross, a reinforced-concrete detached bell tower rises to its west. Tange was awarded the

Order of St. Gregory the Great The Pontifical Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great (; ) was established on 1 September 1831, by Pope Gregory XVI, seven months after his election as Pope. The order is one of the five Papal order of knighthood, orders of knighthood of th ...

for his design of the cathedral in 1970. Kenzo Tange's funeral was held at St. Mary's in March 2005. In 2007, the cathedral underwent a comprehensive renovation, which renewed the stained glass and the steel shell, also fixing rain leakage problems which had plagued the building since its construction.

Architecture

The layout of the building is in the form of a cross, from which eight hyperbolic parabolas open upwards to form a cross of light, which continues vertically along the length of the four facades. Through the use of parabolas, the rhomboidal ground floor is turned into a cross as the building rises. This Tange design inspired the later similar design of the landmark cathedral in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

, also referred to as St. Mary's Cathedral. To this

rhomboid Traditionally, in two-dimensional geometry, a rhomboid is a parallelogram in which adjacent sides are of unequal lengths and angles are non-right angled. The terms "rhomboid" and "parallelogram" are often erroneously conflated with each oth ...

volume other secondary constructions are added, including the baptistry and the baptismal font. The rectangular shapes contrast with the symbolic character of the cathedral. The bell tower is high, standing a short distance away from the main building. The exterior cladding is made of

stainless steel Stainless steel, also known as inox, corrosion-resistant steel (CRES), or rustless steel, is an iron-based alloy that contains chromium, making it resistant to rust and corrosion. Stainless steel's resistance to corrosion comes from its chromi ...

. In 2004 a large

organ Organ and organs may refer to: Biology * Organ (biology), a group of tissues organized to serve a common function * Organ system, a collection of organs that function together to carry out specific functions within the body. Musical instruments ...

built by Italian firm Mascioni was installed. Some critics have evaluated the cathedral as one of Tange's lesser works, dealing in

cliché A cliché ( or ; ) is a saying, idea, or element of an artistic work that has become overused to the point of losing its original meaning, novelty, or literal and figurative language, figurative or artistic power, even to the point of now being b ...

and failing to establish a civic space of the sort that Tange aspired to. Architectural historian David Stewart went as far as to state "the less said about Tokyo Cathedral, the better."

Gallery

File:20030702 2 July 2003 Tokyo Cathedorale 3 Tange Kenzou Sekiguchi Tokyo Japan.jpg, One quadrant of the Tokyo Cathedral, 2 July 2003 File:Tange Cathedral-1979.jpg, The interior in 1979 File:Stmary3.jpg, Baptismal font File:Cathedral St. Mary Innen Pietà.jpg, A reproduction of Michelangelo's Pietà inside File:Lourdes Grotto (Tokyo).jpg, The

of the cathedral, which survived WWII air raids

References

External links

*
Photographs of exterior and interior of church
Churches in Tokyo Mary, Tokyo Roman Catholic churches completed in 1964 Buildings and structures in Bunkyō Modernist architecture in Japan Christian organizations established in 1899 Kenzo Tange buildings 20th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Japan 1899 establishments in Japan {{Asia-RC-church-stub