Catedral Church of St. Joseph — Attraction in Pontianak

This is also a review a few years too late (I am now heading over to Kalimantan to review places, since I cannot physically travel there).

In today's scale of construction, this church is a tall order, from its funding, its engineering, architecture or even envisioning it at the first place. Pictures that we can see here does this place no justice. You have to be there to see how huge this church is. For modern constructions of this size, the norm is to place it out of the city. But not this church, this church is right at the middle of the city.

A little bit of story. Though I have seen it during the earlier stage of its construction before, I saw it in its final form a few years back (end of 2015?) with a group of us from a university (from Malaysia). We did not intend to go inside the building as we did not have any plans prior to that for visiting (and that might be considered trespassing), and was just cheekily taking pictures outside, y'know, for memories. We were soon approached by a guard there telling that we might not be on the grounds- and of course, he was doing his job. So we were about to leave when a lady, emerging from the church (and probably in the church committee) told the guard to let us in.

She was asking us where we came from and we said that we were from Kuching and was just visiting the city on a trip. She asked whether we would like to take a look inside- which of course we did, if they allow it without any prior arrangement. The lady straight away invited us inside and let the sweaty inappropriately dressed group of university students into the sacred hall decorated with tinted glass. The filthy body of us reeking from walking hours under the sun and Pontianak air pollution to walk around posing for pictures and admiring the architecture feat this cathedral is. If i remembered correctly the woman just let us take our sweet time and left not long after telling us to have fun visiting and telling the guard to let us visit and close up after.

If you are Catholic from Kuching, probably you have been here already. But if you haven't, I think you would like to add this to your list. No, but then again, you don't need to be of any faith to enjoy a grand architectural feat. If you haven't been to Europe or seen the cathedral there, this church is your chance to physically experience why they build cathedrals in the past- it is the...

This Catholic church has a beautiful both interior and exterior design aside from the modern architecture, this church still has the gothic and old church design. Facilities in this church is top notch with full television, projector, air conditioner, elevator for elders, basement, store to purchase amazing decorations and accessories, great toilet quality, emergency ambulance and health unit, highly facilitated audio (Bose speakers), Yamaha Electone organ, Yamaha PSR S series and Yamaha Clavinova digital piano, and others. This church gives the best of the best facility and quality a church can give in Pontianak. The weekly mass starts on Saturday 6 PM continues on Sunday from 6 AM, 8.30 AM, 4.30 PM and 7 PM. The problems that I usually find in this Church are the air conditioner sometimes doesn't work well, the delay of the lyrics/text on the projector and sometimes the Church is too crowd so it will be hard to get in and out, especially during big events. Overall this is a recommended place to attend mass nor to visit it as a recreational place (if there is no mass). I give this God's throne...

It was about 3 or 4 years ago when I visited Pontianak for business. I saw it for the first time when I was on my way from the airport to my office. It attracted me very much, and I was surprised when the driver told me it was a Catholic church. It is not just a chuch. It is a Cathedral. I got two words expressing my admiration : large and luxurious. After watching it for several times just from outside, I had time in Friday morning to attend daily morning mass : I proved by myself, how beautiful this church is. High quality in its every part. Someone there told me that the main entrance door made from "belian wood", a kind of wood that cannot be weathered, sent to Jepara in Central Java to be carved there (Jepara is a small town in Java which is famous with fine and artistic carving works).... He told me also, the Cathedral was designed by a local architect, who did a deep observation in...