Talk:Ouagadougou Cathedral

inaccuracies
This articles starts with two inaccuracies.

1. "That the cathedral is made of mud bricks." No, it is made of cut stone, but I don't know what the stone is. It is not the laterite, the use of which was pioneered by the missionaries during the colonial period, but of a smoother stone. I heard that stone cutters from France were brought to execute and train locals for this construction. If I had more precise information I would have changed the article, but what is currently stated is obviously wrong and should not stay there.

2. "It gives deliberately the impression of being unfinished." This is wrong. The cathedral is indeed unfinished, as anyone can tell even from the pictures. The two front towers are of different heights, because one is in more advanced stage of completion, and one can easily figure out what it is supposed to look like. The building doesn't have a proper roof and the walls have not been built to the proper height. It was covered in a haste with corrugated metal sheets, which is the current covering. The building was left unfinished because money ran out when Mgr Joanny Thévenoud was unable to raise more funds in Europe for this expensive project in the 1930s with the war approaching and he died in 1949. It was decided to put the building, unfinished as it was, into usable shape and hope that with more money in the future construction woul restart. This never happened. Young generations have seen the building always like this and not knowing what European churches look like think that this is the way it is supposed to look. Also I am not sure it is accurate to call the style Romanesque. I am no expert in the matter but it seems to me the style is some kind of low, early Gothic. Maybe with a wood ceiling, because the walls do not look sturdy enough to support a barrel vault ceiling or rib-vault ceiling. The church probably does keep the original architectural design documents. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:D:CC80:DD3:226:4AFF:FE03:2AD0 (talk) 05:21, 4 November 2014 (UTC)