St. Joseph Cathedral in Tianjin was built from August 1913 to June 1916, and each brick was shipped from France. The Holy See issued an edict in 1912, announced through the Zhili Vicariate. The article calls the exterior Romanesque and the largest Romanesque church in northern China, with an interior based on French and Roman architecture.
A dome with a green copper outer surface, a wood structure and a bronze cross crowns it. The walls use red and yellow tiles framed with white masonry. Two rows of seven columns line the main hall, which covers about 20,400 square feet (1,892 square meters) and holds 1,500 people.
Red Guards destroyed three towers on August 23, 1966, and they were rebuilt in the 1980s. The 1976 Tangshan earthquake damaged the cathedral, and repairs were completed in fall 1980. It was listed on Tianjin's cultural relics protection list in August 1991.
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