San Marcos Cathedral

San Marcos de Arica is built of iron. It was prefabricated, shipped in sections and assembled here in 1876, when Arica was still Peruvian and the town needed a church after earthquakes and the tsunami of 1868 destroyed what stood before - iron being chosen precisely because it would survive the next one. The structure is bolted plate and cast iron throughout, painted, with a gothic idiom rendered in metal. Tradition, and the Spanish-language sources, credit the workshop of Gustave Eiffel in France; other research finds no trace of this in local or French archives and records the cast-iron structure as ordered from the United States by the government of the Peruvian president José Balta. The former customs house on the shore is another prefabricated building often credited to Eiffel.

History

The earthquake of 13 August 1868 brought down the old church, which had stood for 226 years, and a committee of local women asked the Peruvian president, José Balta, for a new cathedral. His government ordered a cast-iron structure that could be shipped easily to Arica, and the new church was inaugurated in 1876 on the site of the old one. English-language research records the order as placed in the United States and finds nothing in local or French archives to support the familiar story of Gustave Eiffel's workshop (Wikipedia, St. Mark's Cathedral, Arica), while Spanish-language sources hold that the parts came from Eiffel's workshops in France in 1875 and were assembled by French technicians; the church was declared a national monument on 4 October 1984 (Spanish Wikipedia, Catedral de San Marcos de Arica).

The main sights

• A church built of iron - prefabricated and bolted together on site.
• Assembled in 1876 - when Arica was still Peruvian.
• Built to survive earthquakes - after the 1868 quake and tsunami.
• The old customs house - another prefabricated building on the shore, also credited to Eiffel.

When to go

Year round. An hour.

Things to know

It is small and takes twenty minutes. Opening hours follow the parish schedule and services take precedence. The plaza around it is busy. The Eiffel attribution is traditional and disputed: no record of it has been found in local or French archives.

Nearby

The Morro rises above the city; the customs house is on the shore.

Key facts