Grace Cathedral

Grace Chapel was built in the 1849 Gold Rush on Powell Street near Jackson, and a brick Gothic church at California and Stockton followed in 1862; it burned in 1906. The William H. Crockers gave their block to the diocese, a pro-cathedral was built in 1907 and the cornerstone was laid in 1910. George Bodley prepared plans; his death led to a design by his partner Cecil Hare, and Hare's local agent Lewis Hobart became official architect and redesigned the building. The Founders Crypt served from 1914 to 1930. The present cathedral was begun in 1927, the Chapel of Grace opened in 1930, and by 1934 the two-thirds-built cathedral was opened for use. The north tower went up between 1936 and 1943, work resumed in 1960 and the largely completed cathedral was consecrated in 1964. The Cathedral School for Boys was begun in 1956 and the close was finished in 1995; it occupies a 2.5-acre city block.

Hobart chose French Gothic, on a cruciform plan with twin towers, a central fleche and a polygonal apse, taking Amiens, Notre-Dame, Beauvais and Chartres as influences. The wide nave, narrow piers and absent triforium follow Aragonese Gothic and Palma, Majorca; the nave clerestory is English; the Chapel of Grace follows the Sainte-Chapelle. The fabric is raw concrete and steel because the 1906 earthquake made structural strength necessary: riveted steel lattices, beams and reinforcing bar from 1927 to 1943, clustered steel bar and beams from 1960 to 1964, and Guastavino acoustic tile in the vaulting.

Grace Cathedral has an indoor and an outdoor labyrinth, both in the Chartres pattern. The indoor labyrinth is open during cathedral visitor hours and the outdoor labyrinth is open at all hours. Canon Lauren Artress introduced the labyrinth in 1991. The AIDS Interfaith Memorial Chapel occupies the north tower lobby, set aside in 1995. Its first major furnishing was a casting of "The Life of Christ", a triptych altarpiece Keith Haring made in 1990. The cathedral records that the casting was obtained with the help of Haring's friend Yoko Ono and the local activist Frank Malifrando, and that it is shaped like a Russian icon.