Tucked behind a fence in a quiet South Austin neighborhood, a 35-foot tower built from roughly 60 tons of scrap metal, rubber, concrete and glass has been rising for nearly four decades — and it is still growing. The Cathedral of Junk, the sprawling backyard sculpture at the center of artist Vince Hannemann's property, remains open to the public strictly by appointment, with visitors calling ahead to schedule a walk-through of a structure that started as a pile of hubcaps and became an Austin institution.
Hannemann began building what would become the Cathedral of Junk in 1988, then moved to Austin from Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1989, according to The Independent. He had built backyard sculptures since childhood and studied architecture for one semester before landing in Central Texas, where he started showing the project to the public in the early 1990s. The structure sits at 4422 Lareina Drive in a residential South Austin neighborhood, according to Visit Austin.
What began as individual backyard sculptures — hubcaps nailed to a fence starting in 1989 — eventually merged into a single connected fortress. Hannemann originally called the evolving project “Yardspace Eleven” in 1992, before his mother gave it the name that stuck: the Cathedral of Junk, according to the SPACES Archives. Discarded bicycles are now woven into the structure's multi-story framework, per the same account.
What Visitors Actually Find Inside
The Cathedral includes a domed room that stands nearly three stories tall, a second story that can hold roughly six to eight people, and a top sitting area for about three or four more, per The Independent's reporting. Old tires, light fixtures and whirlybirds have been fashioned into a pyramid-like shape, and dozens of glass bottles are embedded in partial cement walls throughout the structure. Hannemann told The Independent he's still collecting: “Skis, crutches — I think I've got enough shopping carts finally,” he said, describing the kinds of donated junk that keep finding their way into the build.
The Cathedral has drawn an eclectic mix of admirers over the years. Daniel Schramm described it as a masterpiece, while a visitor from Canberra called it a strange attraction hidden in suburbia, and Yvette Arriaga called it one of the most exciting and craziest things she had seen, according to The Independent. One visitor even used the site as a backdrop for post-wedding photos in 2024. It has also left a mark on Austin's entertainment industry: the Cathedral was featured as a filming set in director Robert Rodriguez's Austin-produced feature film Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over, per CultureMap Austin. A Bank of America commercial also filmed there, providing Hannemann with residual payments for a year, The Independent reports.
A Neighbor Complaint Nearly Shut It Down
The Cathedral's freewheeling growth ran into City Hall in March 2010, when Austin's Code Compliance Department issued a violation notice citing the then-33-foot structure as an unpermitted, dangerous building, according to The Austin Chronicle. The notice followed a neighbor complaint and threatened demolition. The dispute traced back to residents of an adjacent townhome complex directly behind Hannemann's lot, who had filed formal complaints, according to Atlas Obscura.
To get a legal building permit, Hannemann removed approximately 40 tons of material, per the SPACES Archives. The Cathedral secured a building permit, according to the SPACES Archives. Before that intervention forced mandatory visitor scheduling, the backyard installation had drawn an estimated 10,000 visitors a year, according to the SPACES Archives — a volume of foot traffic on a quiet residential street that had helped trigger the code complaints in the first place.
Living, Shrinking, Growing Sculpture
Hannemann doesn't treat the Cathedral as a fixed monument. He voluntarily dismantled a three-story rear tower after feeling overwhelmed by its maintenance demands, then reversed course and used the salvaged materials to build three new rooms, according to Atlas Obscura. He has said he would take the whole thing down when he stops liking it, per The Independent — a reminder that, in his own telling, the Cathedral is an evolving work rather than a permanent installation.
Today, the arrangement between homeowner, neighbors and city code enforcement remains a careful balancing act. Entry is free, and visits are scheduled by appointment only by calling Hannemann at (512) 299-7413, with suggested cash donations of $5 per adult, according to ATX Things. Hannemann became a full-time artist in 2008 and still accepts both cash donations and donated junk from visitors who want to add to the structure, The Independent reports. He also built a second layer of fence after visitors began wandering into his private space uninvited, per the same report — a small, practical fix for a landmark that still draws admirers from across the United States and around the world, in keeping with the “Keep Austin Weird” spirit residents often invoke to describe it.
