Spanish Architect to Design St. Vibiana’s

Spanish architect Jose Rafael Moneo, named Tuesday as the designer of a new St. Vibiana’s Roman Catholic Cathedral, said he favors demolition of the existing cathedral and hopes its $50-million replacement will stay at the original downtown site as “a sign of hope” for Los Angeles.

The 59-year-old architect from Madrid, who is also a part-time professor at Harvard University, spoke in nearly mystical terms of winning the coveted job to build a spiritual headquarters for the nation’s most populous Catholic archdiocese. “It came in a way that only the future will explain to me later,” he said after a contract signing ceremony with Cardinal Roger M. Mahony. “I don’t know why it came to my hands. It is almost by fate.”

Moneo beat out two other highly regarded finalists--Frank O. Gehry and Thom Mayne, both Santa Monicans whose work, some experts suggest, may have been too cutting edge for church leaders. The only Roman Catholic among the finalists, Moneo was described by Mahony as having “an exceptional spiritual depth that we believed essential” in designing “a wonderful sacred space in the midst of a modern city known for its ephemeral entertainment glitter.”

Moneo will go home to Spain on Thursday with another huge plum from Los Angeles--he is being awarded the $100,000 Pritzker Prize, the annual Nobel of architecture, tonight at the Getty Center in Brentwood. Moneo also will take with him a taste of American politics, as preservationists seek to save the existing cathedral and Mahony threatens to move the project elsewhere if those efforts succeed.

The soft-spoken Moneo did not shy from that dispute Tuesday. He said that he respected preservationists’ feelings but that the earthquake-damaged, 120-year-old St. Vibiana’s “architecturally isn’t a piece of great value” and should be razed. He stressed that he wants to work with the Los Angeles Conservancy to incorporate old pieces, such as stained-glass windows, porticoes and altars, into a new cathedral campus that will include a rectory, plaza and meeting hall.

Praised for his ability to combine historical flavor with contemporary design, Moneo is well known in Europe for designing banks, city halls, museums and even a bullring extension. Among his works are the 1986 National Museum of Roman Art, an esteemed building of brick archways in Merida, Spain, and the 1991 San Pablo Airport terminal in Seville, which features rows of columns and vaults that remind some observers of a church. His only completed work in the United States is the 1993 Davis Museum and Cultural Center at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. Construction is to start early next year on his addition to Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts.

Moneo said Tuesday that it was too early to specify any design ideas for the 2,500-3,000-seat cathedral. The architect, who was chairman of the architecture department at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design from 1985 to 1990, then launched into a mini-lecture about Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque styles. That seemed to trigger worry among television crews about sound bites at the news conference held in the archdiocese’s new Mid-Wilshire administrative offices.

A thin, almost frail-looking man who speaks English somewhat haltingly with a pronounced Spanish accent, Moneo later said he would try to accommodate private prayer and large public celebrations. “I very much want a church able to share both this sense of an individual being able to be isolated from the outside world and being able . . . to enhance the value of the community,” he said.

In the past, Mahony has suggested that the design should pay homage to the Spanish Mission style. Showing what appeared to be an independent streak, Moneo said he is not wedded to the mission tradition, although he called it “quite interesting and quite attractive.”

Moneo said he could not cite a large contemporary church that he much liked, but he did specify several small chapels that he loved in Europe, including the cavern-like Catholic chapel in Ronchamp, France, designed in the early 1950s by the modernist master Le Corbusier.

Before the cathedral interviews began, Moneo visited Los Angeles four or five times. Recent visits, he said, reinforced his belief that the cathedral’s current location at 2nd and Main streets is “the most interesting site in the city.” And the best way to retain historical ties, he added, “is to build where the old cathedral was.”

Over the past few months, a jury of other architects and artists surveyed a large international field and settled on five semifinalists. Those five, including Robert Venturi of Philadelphia and Santiago Calatrava, a Spaniard who works in Switzerland, had to design a shrine for the statue of 18th century missionary Father Junipero Serra near Olvera Street. The three finalists--Moneo, Gehry and Mayne--met with the cardinal, church leaders and the two biggest private donors to discuss liturgy, budgets and schedules.

The shrine drawings were not made public. Jury participants said the finalists’ work showed strong feeling for Catholic tradition and history and that Moneo’s was not necessarily the best. His shrine had “simple geometry,” white walls that recalled the mission style and a grove of olive trees and cypress, according to a jury summary. It featured a map of California missions and a tile mosaic telling Father Serra’s life.

Moneo won the contract because of his interviews and his past body of work, sources said, and his religion played a role. Moneo described himself as Catholic-educated but not a strong practitioner of the faith. On Tuesday, he showed respect for Catholic ritual by kissing Mahony’s ring during the ceremony.

Mahony and Moneo declined to specify the architect’s fee, with the cardinal describing it as “ample and sufficient for a man of his stature.” Experts knowledgeable about the project suggested that Moneo’s fee probably is between $1 million and $1.5 million. A still unchosen firm, probably an American company familiar with local building codes, will do the highly technical construction drawings, officials said.

Mahony estimated Tuesday that the entire project would cost $50 million, figuring $45 million for the building and $5 million for additional land and other costs.

Born in Tudela, Spain, Moneo earned his architectural degree at Madrid University, where he later taught. Starting in the 1970s, he began teaching in the United States, including at Princeton and Harvard. Among his other buildings are an expansion of the Pamplona bullring, the Atocha Railway station in Madrid, and the new Museum of Modern Art and Architecture in Stockholm.

Michael Hricak, president of the Los Angeles chapter of the American Institute of Architects, said that any disappointment that local designers did not get the job is eased by the belief that Moneo can create a wonderful cathedral. “Moneo’s work is both timely and timeless,” Hricak said. He added that he hoped that the archdiocese would allow Moneo “to do the next generation of cathedrals rather than some nostalgic or stylistically predictable response.”