Washington National Cathedral, officially the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, is designated the national non-denominational house of prayer of the United States. Located at Massachusetts and Wisconsin Avenues, Northwest in Washington, DC, it is the sixth largest cathedral in the world and second largest in the United States. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Despite its name, the National Cathedral is not operated by the United States government, nor is it publicly funded.
Washington National Cathedral was completed on 29 September 1990 after almost a century of planning and 83 years in construction, Construction started September 29, 1907 . Its final design shows a mix of influences from the various Gothic architectural styles of the middle ages, marked, among other things, by pointed arches, flying buttresses, vaulted ceilings, stained glass windows, stonecarved decorations, and three similar towers, two on the west front and one surmounting the crossing. Works of art including over two hundred stained glass windows, the most familiar of which may be the Space Window, honoring man's landing on the Moon, which includes a fragment of lunar rock at its center. Most of the decorative elements have Christian symbolism, in reference to the church's Episcopalian roots, but the cathedral is filled with memorials to persons or events of national significance: statues of Washington and Lincoln, state seals embedded in the mosaic floor of the narthex, state flags that hang along the nave, stained glass commemorating events like the Lewis and Clark expedition.
Did you Know...That Darth Vader was craved onto the Washington National Cathedral? When you visit, here's where to look.
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