Basílica de Nuestra Señora de la Altagracia

The Basílica de Nuestra Señora de la Altagracia is the most important religious site in the Dominican Republic and one of the most architecturally striking buildings in the Caribbean. Completed in 1971 and designed by the French architects André Jacques Dunoyer de Segonzac and Pierre Dupré, it features a dramatic concrete arch rising 80 metres above the surrounding city — the arch is said to represent the hands of the Virgin raised in prayer. The interior is vast and flooded with coloured light from stained glass designed by the French artist Georges Bique.

Whether you are religious or not, the building is worth seeing. The scale is genuinely impressive, the architecture ambitious and unusual, and the atmosphere — especially when pilgrims are present — is charged with something real. The basilica sits in a large plaza that serves as the gathering point for the annual January pilgrimage, when the city swells to several times its normal size.

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Every year on January 21st, hundreds of thousands of Dominicans make the pilgrimage to this basilica for the feast of the Virgen de la Altagracia, the patron saint of the Dominican Republic. Many walk long distances, some on their knees for the final approach. The image of the Virgin, housed in the old sanctuary next door, has been venerated here since the sixteenth century — an extraordinary continuity of faith in a country that has seen conquest, slavery, revolution, and dictatorship.