The Monastery of Santa Catalina de Siena is a large monastery of the Dominican Second Order, located in Arequipa, Peru. It is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site "Historical Centre of the City of Arequipa".
The citadel was located in the south of Peru in the city of Arequipa, founded on September 10, 1579 and located in an area that stands out for its natural beauty, welcoming climate and that has a great material with which the architecture of this city is built and continues to be built, the tuff. In the monastery there are two types, the white tuff, which comes from the Chachani volcano, and the pink one from the Misti, the latter emblem of the city. The citadel occupies an area of 20,000 square meters, "it constitutes a true and small city, characterized by its multitude of streets, somewhat tortuous, broken and narrow." And is completely isolated from the city, despite being located in the heart of it. A great and solid wall of 4 meters of height isolated the life of the women who inhabited the monastery.
The charm of this citadel lies in the solidity and plasticity of its volumes, and the beauty that master builders achieved in the architecture of these enclosures through solutions such as flying buttresses or the construction of strong arches based on pillars. In the interiors, domes and vaulted ceilings greatly expand the space and add to the sense of strength of the buildings. Likewise, especially in the area of the alleys, the intervention of masons who, lacking a proper architectural design, were raising walls, roofs, cells, patios and portals of a simple approach is perceived. The current building houses splendid pieces of art, such as a Baroque altar of carved and gilt wood, with one body and three lanes, which adorns the chapel, and several paintings from the Cusco School. Due to the constant earthquakes that affected the monastery, the families of the nuns chose to build unique and private cells for each one of them. What caused there to be ordered sectors and in the absence of a plan others with a notorious disorder. For almost two centuries during the colony, the cloisters and cells of the monastery have undergone various modifications, additions and new constructions that have made Santa Catalina a counter on a human scale of Arequipa's colonial architecture.
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