St. Andrew's Catholic Church, Pasadena, Romanesque Catholic church in Pasadena, United States

St. Andrew's is a Romanesque-style Catholic church in Pasadena completed in 1927. The interior features white Carrara marble altars, columns topped with Corinthian capitals, and detailed wall paintings created over several years by skilled artists.

The first Catholic parish in Pasadena was established in 1886, and the current building was designed and built in 1927. This construction represented a major expansion of the Catholic community's presence in the city.

The interior arrangement takes inspiration from Rome's Basilica of Santa Sabina, while the facade echoes Santa Maria in Cosmedin church. Visitors can see these European influences reflected in how the building's spaces flow and in its decorative details.

The church stands at Raymond Avenue and Chestnut Street, and its campanile can be picked out from the Foothill Freeway heading east, especially toward sunset. The 1927 building replaced an earlier church on Fair Oaks, from which the Blessed Sacrament was carried in procession at 6 a.m. during the May 1928 dedication. Allow time inside for Carlo Wostry's murals and stations of the cross, finished only in 1935.

Italian painter Carlo Wostry spent five years on the interior decoration, working both in the church and in a secluded studio in the Hollywood Hills, and called his work at St. Andrew's the "crowning work" of his artistic life. Twenty-four of his murals were exhibited in Trieste before being shipped to Pasadena.