Catedral de Justo
Justo Gallego Martínez laid the first stone on October 12, 1961, and worked on the building for 60 years with no drawings, no training as an architect or a builder, and no permit. He died on November 28, 2021, at 96. The building has still never been licensed or consecrated.
Field Guide Entry
The vow
Gallego entered the Trappist monastery of Santa María de Huerta in Soria and left in 1961 after contracting tuberculosis. He had promised that if he recovered he would build a church to Our Lady of the Pillar. He started on family land in Mejorada del Campo on October 12, the feast of the Pilar, and did not stop.
How it was built
Almost nothing was bought. Bricks came from a nearby factory's rejects. Columns were cast inside used oil drums. Bicycle wheels served as pulleys. There were never any plans on paper; he carried the building in his head and revised it as he went, with help from two nephews and whoever turned up.
What stands is roughly 4,700 square meters of it: a dome 35 meters high, 12 towers, 28 smaller domes, and more than 2,000 pieces of stained glass. The proportions are borrowed from buildings he had seen in books, and the structure is unfinished in every direction at once.
Standing
The building has never held a construction license, and it has never been consecrated. No diocese recognizes it as a cathedral; the name is what everyone calls it.
In 2005, Gallego signed it over to Mensajeros de la Paz, the charity run by Padre Ángel, which took the site on after his death. In September 2025, the organization confirmed it would be open to people of any religion and described it as a social and cultural center rather than a church, with an interreligious prayer room in an annex that is not in regular use.
Structural studies have been completed. The license is still pending.
Visiting Information
Open daily, 11am to 7pm. There is no admission charge, and donations are collected inside.
It is as much a construction site as a building: unfinished surfaces, uneven floors, exposed structure, and stairs without rails in places. Upper levels are not always open, and ordinary care is worth taking on the way round.
Most visitors spend about 30 to 45 minutes. It stands in a residential part of Mejorada del Campo, east of central Madrid, and is visible from several streets away because nothing else near it is that tall.
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