Spanish cathedral urged to reconsider ‘ugly’ bronze doors

Antonio Lopez, one of Spain's best-known artists, designed the reliefs for Burgos cathedral

Catholic authorities have been accused of wasting money on an ‘ugly’ new set of enormous bronze doors for the awe-inspiring Gothic cathedral in the Spanish city of Burgos.

Juan Vallejo, a local painter, has launched an online campaign against the three bronze portals bearing reliefs of God, the Virgin Mary and Jesus as a child, describing them as an "eyesore" and a "monumental waste of money". The petition has secured 31,000 signatures. 

The  €1.2 million project is being undertaken by Antonio López, one of Spain’s best-known living artists with a career spanning seven decades.

However, Unesco’s World Heritage Centre has also recommended against installing the new doors after receiving an unfavourable report by the Spanish branch of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (Icomos).

Burgos Cathedral’s status as a world heritage site means the temple authorities must “accept the consequences that could result from failing to live up to their commitments to safeguard the cathedral as a place of outstanding universal value”, Icomos warned.

But the Archbishopric of Burgos has vowed to push ahead with its bold plan to replace the sober wooden doors dating from 1790 with the dazzling bronzes.

The final decision will be taken by the culture department of Castilla y León’s regional government.  In a statement, the archbishopric says the new doors will be “a symbol of union and a legacy for future generations”, adding: “Who now could conceive of the Louvre without its pyramid or the German parliament without its glass dome?”

The controversy echoes several high-profile recent instances in Spain of bodged restoration jobs on religious artefacts, such as work on a 16th-century polychrome wooden statue of St George that left the warrior looking more like a character from Tintin — and the infamous “monkey Christ” rendering of Borja’s Ecce Homo fresco.

Come what may, Burgos’s clergy insist, the new doors will be made and displayed as an artwork inside the cathedral in the event that permission to install them is denied.