Convent of Santo Domingo, Dominican convent in central Cusco, Peru

The Dominican convent in Cusco combines Spanish colonial architecture with precisely fitted Inca stone blocks from the former temple dedicated to the sun. The structure reveals two building styles side by side: below are the massive, perfectly interlocking Inca foundations, and above them stand the Spanish colonial vaults and a baroque tower.

Dominican friars constructed this religious complex in 1534 on the site of the Qoricancha, where the Inca people previously worshipped the sun god Inti. The Spanish reused the existing stone blocks as the foundation for their new structure, creating a building that visibly stacks both cultures atop each other.

The convent stands on the Coricancha, the Inca temple of the sun, and the church is dedicated to Santo Domingo de Guzmán, founder of the Order of Preachers. Inside, the three-nave church holds a dome, a choir stall carved in cedar and walls decorated with Seville tiles. The first prior was fray Juan de Olías, who came with missionaries from Mexico.

The convent stands on the site of the Coricancha, and the Inca temple's lower stonework survives inside the complex, so visitors pass from colonial rooms into original Inca chambers. The 1950 earthquake toppled the tower arches and cracked the apse wall, and the second-floor rooms of the cloister were left uninhabitable; repairs followed. Look for the Sevillian tiles on the walls and the cedar choir stalls.

The Inca walls are made of stones fitted so precisely that even today a knife cannot slip between them. Multiple strong earthquakes have left this lower section nearly untouched, while the newer Spanish construction above it has required repairs several times.