A new courtyard as been built next to the remains that housed El Arco Chato, or the Flat Arch of the Church of Santo Domingo. The arch, almost miraculously, spanned fifty-feet and baffled architects worldwide for 325 years, until it finally collapsed in 2003. In 1913, the arch convinced a committee that Panama was more geologically stable than Nicaragua, and thus the best place to build an inter-ocean canal.