2026 Louis & Clark side trip - part 7: the city's new Basilica - Travel With Us

Some friends in our small group (Kim and Chris) used to live in St. Louis and said we just had to go to St. Louis’s new basilica, even though we’re not Catholics. So after walking through the Old Courthouse, we drove over to this cathedral. And are we glad we did. We’ve seen pictures of old European cathedrals that took years to build, and the goal of those builders was to bring glory to God. I think this goal was true of those who built the cathedral we saw today. The first half of this post has pictures of the outside and inside of the building. The second half is all about how it was decorated since mosaics are used throughout the interior; nothing is painted (this 2nd part is for those of you who like the story behind the story).

It’s so hard to get a picture of the front of the cathedral since the spires are so tall, but we tried.

The cornerstone of the cathedral was laid on October 18, 1908, and it was dedicated to St. Louis IX, King of France, and patron saint of the city. In 1930, the mosaics depicting the life of Saint Louis were completed in the Cathedral’s narthex, visually preparing the visitor for the growing grandeur inside. Shortly after World War II, a sacristy was added to the north end of the structure. The Kilgen organ was replaced, and work on the mosaics continued. It was finally completed in 1988 when the final two areas—the east and west transepts—were finished.

In 1997, the Cathedral was designated as a Cathedral Basilica by Pope John Paul II, who honored the Cathedral Basilica with a visit on his history-making visit to the United States in January of 1999. This history of the basilica is from the website describing the church.

This professional picture is able to take in the whole front of the cathedral.

The full name is the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis. We felt so welcomed by the security guard who gave us so much information about what we were to see.

This side view shows how big the cathedral really is.

This picture of the entrance show how tall the doors are since Barney looks so short.

We saw this sign as we walked through the downstairs that describes how the inside was decorated with mosaics.

The exterior was done in a Romanesque style and most of the interior in a Byzantine style.

Romanesque architecture is the first pan-European architectural style of the Middle Ages, flourishing from the 10th to the 13th centuries. Inspired by ancient Roman building techniques, it is characterized by massive stone walls, semicircular arches, and sturdy piers designed to support heavy, fire-resistant masonry vaults.

The Byzantine style is defined with the final picture in this post. [Wanted to encourage you to read to the end.]

The cathedral houses some 83,000 square feet of mosaics, the largest collection of mosaics in the world. Later in the post we’ll define these styles, and you’ll see the difference. Some of the rooms were done in different styles, and you’ll be able to see the difference.

inside the basilica

The Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis is globally renowned for housing one of the largest collections of mosaic art in the Western Hemisphere. Its interior is completely blanketed by stunning Byzantine and Romanesque-style mosaics made from over 41 million glass tiles in 7,000 shades of colors. The mosaics cover 83,000 square feet and took artisans nearly 80 years to install, finishing in 1988. Masterpieces inside were crafted using contributions from famous studios, including Tiffany Studios. (AI) Remember, nothing you see in this basilica has been painted, all done in glass.

Our first view of the sanctuary was awe-inspiring.

This is a view of one of the sides of the sanctuary.

This ceiling above one of the sides shows Jesus reaching out to mankind.

This is a close up of the front of the sanctuary and the rotunda.

This is the Blessed Virgin’s Chapel designed by the Italian artist Aristide Leonori in the *Italian manner*.

The Italian stone style offers muted colors and a duller, more matte quality, providing a distinct visual contrast to the highly reflective glass of the main Byzantine areas.

All Souls Chapel has such a different look to it because it honors those who have died.

This next specific side chapel features stark, somber black, gray, and white marble mosaics to reflect its theme of mourning and remembrance. The three hats are suspended from the ceiling directly above the floor where four of the archbishops and cardinals of Saint Louis are entombed.

The red hats hanging from the ceiling in the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis are called galeros. These wide-brimmed ceremonial hats belonged to deceased St. Louis Cardinals: John Glennon, Joseph Elmer Ritter, and John Carberry. They traditionally hang above the crypt where the cardinals are buried. The hats are hung above entombments to remain there until they slowly crumble to dust, acting as a somber visual reminder of human mortality.

Folklore suggests that until the hat’s thick red cord completely decays and the hat falls to the floor, the cardinal’s soul remains in purgatory. Pope Paul VI officially abolished the wearing of the galero in 1969, but allowing them to deteriorate overhead remains a beloved custom in historic cathedrals. (All of this information is from AI.)

Scenes on the ceiling show the history of the priests in America.

Scenes of believers receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit. Work on this mosaic is included in the second half of this post.

This picture shows the interior of the new cathedral before the mosaics were installed.

The original St. Louis cathedral was next to the Missouri River and today is under the Arch.

all about the mosaics in the cathedral

As said before, the cathedral houses some 83,000 square feet of mosaics, the largest collection of mosaics in the world. The mosaics are made from over 41 million glass tiles in 7,000 distinct colors.

All the mosaics in the Cathedral, except those in the Blessed Virgin’s and All Saints’ Chapels, are Byzantine in style.

The mosaics in the two chapels on the sides of the Cathedral are done in the Italian stye.

designing mosaics

Designing mosaics begins with the artist and the patron who has commissioned the mosaic work. The artist first starts with a small sketch that is then critiqued by the patron or those who are commissioning the work.

When the design is satisfactory to everyone, an enlarged water color rendering is then reviewed by all. A final enlarged water color design is done by the artist, who is the guide for the actual mosaicist in the studio where the artist’s design is translated into the mosaic medium.

At this point, the whole design is enlarged to the actual scale of the final mosaic in water color by the artist. When the final mosaic is very large, as in the cathedral areas, this to-scale cartoon has to be cut up into sections small enough for the mosaicist to work on at their work tables.

The mosaicist may be working at any one time on only the face of a figure or a fragment of the setting. That is why they must have the medium-sized artist’s rendering of the whole composition or a sufficiently large section of the to-scale cartoon before them in the studio.

fabrication of mosaics

Over 7000 shades of glass were available for transferring the watercolor to the mosaic medium. While the next information about fabrication mentions 3000 shades of glass, the cathedral’s website says “There are over 7,000 shades of color used to create the magnificent pictorial displays.”

Kayda Thompson is mounting mosaic tesserae on a section of a border mosaic. The picture shows the small fragments of the glass mosaic that could be selected.

Over 3000 shades of glass [or over 7000 shades of glass as we’ve previously found out] from which the worker could choose to translate the watercolor painting of the artist into the mosaic medium.

On the worktable in the previous picture, the partly finished mosaic on paper is in reverse.

installing the mosaics

When the final design is complete in the mosaicist’s studio, dozens or hundreds of fragments of the final mosaic are pasted on brown paper backing. They are numbered, packed in boxes, and brought to the site where they will be assembled on the wall surface that the finished mosaic will decorate.

The reassembling is like solving a gigantic jigsaw puzzle. The mosaicist has a careful diagram that shows where each numbered section is to go.

Preparation work for the installation involves covering the surface on which the mosaic is to be mounted with one or two foundation layers of cement. Just before the actual installation, the last layer of cement is applied to the wall, but only on the amount of wall that can receive the sections of finished mosaic in a day. The mosaic sections mounted on the brown paper are then pressed into the wet plaster and tapped into place with a wooden mallet.

The paper is dampened and removed, and the finished mosaic is no longer in reverse as it appeared on the brown paper where the whole design was mounted face down.

Grouting is rubbed over the surface of the mosaic to fill in all the area between the glass and help hold the pieces permanently in place.

When this is finished and the surface of the mosaic is washed, what is revealed is the completed mosaic, one of the most permanent and beautiful forms of wall decoration ever devised.

Mosaics were used by the ancient Greeks and Romans, but they were made of colored marbles rather than glass. The ancient people used the mosaics for floors, seldom for wall decorations.