Saint Joseph's Oratory, Montreal, Quebec, 1950s

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Saint Joseph's Oratory, Montreal, Quebec, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

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Saint Joseph's Oratory, Montreal, Quebec, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

Unattributed 1950–1959

AA-2026-AA17CD

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Brother André spent forty years convincing people to climb a hill on the western slope of Mount Royal and pray, and by the 1950s the building that resulted from that project loomed over Montreal with one of the largest domes in the world, which was either proof that faith moves mountains or proof that faith builds extremely large things on top of them. The great copper dome of Saint Joseph's Oratory sits above its granite facade with the composed authority of an institution that has decided the argument is over. The long central staircase — up which the devout still ascended on their knees in an act of penitence that the brochures described as spiritually rewarding and the knees described otherwise — is dotted with summer visitors making the climb on their feet, which was the compromise the twentieth century quietly negotiated with the nineteenth.

By the time this was taken, the Oratory had become one of the premier pilgrimage sites in North America, drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors a year who arrived believing in miracles and left with postcards. The carefully manicured grounds, the ranked conifers, and the broad formal approach are doing exactly what they were designed to do: make a person feel small before they have even reached the door.

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