Old Cathedral of Managua
Unknown · Managua, Nicaragua · 1938
The Old Cathedral remains standing as a highly visible ruin from the 1972 Managua earthquake. Its neoclassical façade and twin towers survive while the damaged interior has largely ceased functioning as a conventional church, turning the building into an architectural memorial within the civic center. Because the cathedral was never fully erased or comprehensively reconstructed, its current condition makes structural damage, abandonment and urban memory unusually legible. It is an important counterpoint to Legorreta’s later replacement cathedral elsewhere in Managua.