Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis

Known locally as the New Cathedral, the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis is celebrated for containing one of the largest collections of mosaic art in the world. The Byzantine-Romanesque church was begun in 1907 and its exterior was largely completed by 1914, though the interior mosaic work continued for decades and was finished around 1988. Its mosaics cover roughly 83,000 square feet and contain tens of millions of glass tesserae in thousands of colors. The great central dome and the smaller domes glitter with gold and richly colored biblical scenes that shift with the light. The cathedral serves as the seat of the Archdiocese of St. Louis and was designated a basilica by Pope John Paul II, who visited the city in 1999. A mosaic museum in the lower level explains how the artwork was designed and installed. Visitors come as much for the art as for worship, and guided tours interpret the imagery. The building's scale and the density of its decoration make the interior genuinely breathtaking. It stands in the Central West End neighborhood, near Forest Park. Free to enter, it is one of the most visited religious buildings in the Midwest.