Bolivia Guide
La Paz
Iglesia Santo Domingo
Address: Calle Ingavi
The Iglesia Santo Domingo boasts a richly detailed eighteenth-century facade in mestizo-Baroque style. Carved from soft white stone, the facade exemplifies the intimate combination of Spanish and indigenous symbolism which is characteristic of Andean colonial architecture, with delicately carved trees, grapes and pome-granates (typical Spanish Baroque devices representing the Eucharist) intermingled with New World fruits and parrots. The main body of the church dates from the mid-seventeenth century, when the Dominicans took a leading role in the evangelization of the Andes, while the interior was remodelled in the nineteenth century in rather anodyne Neoclassical style.