The Antigua Guatemala is characterized for the ruins of its religious monuments, which give a solemn atmosphere and make of the city an extraordinary destiny worth while visiting.

Verle Lincoln Annis, in its book La arquitectura de la Antigua Guatemala, 1543-1773 (The architecture of Antigua Guatemala, 1543-1773), qualifies this monument as one of a magnificent scale. The first stone of its construction was set on September 8, 1701, that is more than 300 years ago. The main staircase, with its vaulted ceiling and its dome, describes Lincoln, joined the upper level of the convent with the vestry, and the cloisters were splendid, "as everything else in this establishment".

Type of building: Church and convent
Present address: Alameda de Santa Lucía y Calle de la Recolección
Original address: Alameda de Santa Lucía y Calle de la Recolección
Presently used as: Building in ruins
Original intend: Church and convent

The Convent of La Recolección has been a victim of the human depredation. At the beginning of the last century, the arcades were removed to make a pool in the first cloister and part of its materials has been used to circulate agricultural lands. The vestry was used to manufacture soap and the dining hall to keep wagons.

The map of this architectonic complex is not typical, because it is wider and larger than most of them. Besides, the main entrance opened into the west courtyard and there was a door placed in the middle of the southern wall, which possibly opened into an orchard or garden. The 1717 earthquakes caused damages to its structure. In 1740 shelters were built while the convent was rebuilt. But in 1773, this was destroyed completely. Today, the building serves as a municipal jail.

Type of building: Church and convent
Present address: 1» Calle Oriente y 4». Avenida Norte
Original address: The same
Presently used as: Municipal jail for men
Original intend: Church and convent

The church's fa�ade, as well as the interior, shows the same architectonic forms that were used by the architect Jose de Porres in the Cathedral: the superior body of the building has Ionic columns and the minor details of the niches, as well as the broken entablature and the triangular and broken pediments, show that both buildings were from the same designer, and maybe they also used the same bricklayers as the ones used for the Cathedral.

The broken fa�ade of the church Del Espiritu Santo is oriented to the south, in a small plaza. According to Domingo Juarros it was built before the XVIII Century. A document dated 1751 already shows that they asked the City Hall for money to do some repairs. The monument was destroyed in 1773, but the fa�ade survived until 1942.

Type of building: Ecclesiastical
Present address: Calle del Espíritu Santo
Original address: Calle del Espíritu Santo
Presently used as: Building in ruins
Original intend: The hermitage from the neighborhood of the same name.

Its front design has unique characteristics, and we can observe the wish to break traditional patterns, because in the central street of the first body of the building they incorporated the choir's window, with an octagonal form. The two lateral streets of the first body are higher than the central street and are formed with a couple of wide, Tuscan columns, placed on top of independent bases. Each one of the body's panels has a vaulted niche, which is a semicircle arch, with panels of a Moorish arch, and that are marked by small pilasters and a rounded tympanum.

In all the length of the temple's fa�ade you can appreciate ten buttresses. It is a building with three levels. Between the two first ones (from west to east), that is the second and third levels; one of the towers is developed. The inferior part or intermediate body is a long space opened by two rectangular bays closed by a lower arch, and, between the bays, a couple of pilastors in the shape of a truncated inverted pyramid of a total of six that the temple used to have.

Type of building: Church and convent
Present address: Entre 1» Calle Poniente y 6». Avenida Norte
Original address: Plazuela de La Merced
Presently used as: The church is open for worship, the convent in ruins
Original intend: Church and convent

The complex of La Merced is at the end of a small plaza, whose surroundings produce the sensation of spatial openness, since everything forms part of the church's courtyard. The repairs made during the XIX Century were more "mending than rebuilt", the towers were roofed with sheets until 1960 and were reinforced with concrete. In 1955 and 1959, the Virgin was accidentally decapitated and it was necessary to replace it with a new head.