133 Years Later, Gaudí’s Cathedral Nears Completion | Hacker News Reader

133 Years Later, Gaudí’s Cathedral Nears Completion

news.nationalgeographic.com

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I posted this because I feel like this might be one of the last few multi-generational efforts under a single project umbrella that I might see during my lifetime. As an American I'm in awe of many of the old Cathedrals and Basilicas in Europe that took hundreds of years to complete.

Most of the cathedrals in the U.S. were "tossed up" after a few years of construction. (One of the rare counter examples is the National Cathedral in Washington D.C., however it's not Catholic.)

If we start any current projects in the world that we know will take generations to finish:

* I won't see the end of them

* I'm not sure there's the will to do it

The idea of something like a generation ship, or interstellar colony ships is something far away from what we seem to be able to do today, but I like to think that projects like cathedrals are about as close to what those kinds of things might be like.

I've seen it in a few stages over the recent years. The step from open-roof construction site to a close place of worship was - and still is - captivating.

(Though walking up and down the spires in the earlier stages was much more fun than the lift, if a little scary.)

While it certainly doesn't have the duration of this construction: After watching the LOTR making of, I'd say projects like this are the closest equivalent to the construction of a medieval cathedral, w.r.t. scope and scale, attention of detail, the imagination of a whole, complex interwoven result that conveys a planned experience.

Multigenerational projects will be those of enormous scale. Interstellar exploration and colonization of other planets, especially terraforming, are obvious ones. But for a single building to take that much time? That's unimaginable today.

I'm pretty sure the Sagrada Familia could have been finished sooner if more money had been thrown at it, but in a sense, I also think such a prolonged construction process is itself a work of art. We are often in too much of a hurry, leading us to cut corners.

That we're still looking at a decade from now to completion, given that the Burj Khalifa took 6 years from groundbreaking to opening, is a testament to how much of the work of the Sagrada Familia doesn't scale. The challenge isn't "the building" as a structure -- it's that every single surface in (and on) the thing is a unique sculpture.

I don't think "cutting corners" as a negative -- it's realistic, if you want to ship. Nobody who said "let's build a new church here" lived to see its completion. It's awesome to see, however impractical for 99% of solutions, the occasions when a "screw time and budget -- this thing is going to be perfect" approach is followed through.

I believe money was also a constraining factor in the speed of construction of historical cathedrals.

One of the people working on ITER compared it to a cathedral: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/03/03/a-star-in-a-bot... (been on HN a few times)

The Long Now Foundation also thinks about this kind of thing.

Also a very nice engineering detail that makes this building unique is the usage of multiple paradigms.

This is in fact the reason why it is used as a cover of CTM (in many ways an awesome SICP sequel):

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51JGRqYyy+L.jpg

You should read Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth. It's a quick read and digresses a lot on a fictional romantic side story, but the main character is a middle ages master mason who has grand plans to build a cathedral ... which he hopes his son will continue after his death.

Another good one is St. John the Divine in New York City: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_of_Saint_John_the_Di...

Started in 1892, one of the largest cathedrals, as yet unfinished.

Didn't Bishop Pike declare the Anglican cathedral in San Francisco "finished", though nobody else regarded it as being done?

There are rock-cut temples in India which are pretty jaw-dropping in the number of years it must have taken to complete:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_rock-cut_architecture

There's a neat upside down model [0] somewhere in the exhibitions of the Sagrada that shows how Gaudi figured out the shape of the strange organic columns to perfectly distribute the weight: he made an upside down model where the columns are represented by strings, and the weight of the cathedral by, well, weights. When upside down, the compression pressure in the columns becomes the tension in the strings. It's quite a brilliant way to 'compute' the statics of the cathedral with a physical model like that.

[0]: https://www.flickr.com/photos/stuartmadeley/10340979205

Still remain utterly baffled by people who hate this building. It's genuinely astounding when you go see it. A must visit for anyone who loves maths and or nature.

People used to think the Eiffel tower looks out of place.

Happens with most (very) big structures when new. That London pink tower thing will probably be loved by londoners in a decade or two. And can definitely understand the backlash against the Eiffel at the time it was built. A huge, cold, all metal inorganic tower in the middle of our beautiful city? So ugly! <- a probably contemporary parisian.

It's much more beautiful close up than in pictures, IME. I had mixed feelings until I actually visited.

Yeah, it's extremely imposing up close. I recommend taking the calle de la Marina if you want to get there, seeing this enormous church among the low buildings is quite a sight.

I think it's one of the most astonishing buildings on the planet - a literally breathtaking mix of geometry and organic forms.

What many people dislike, myself included, is the Eurodisney flavor of it all: a team interpreting Gaudí sketches (there are no real construction plans, unfortunately), and recreating the "Gaudí looks" in concrete.

Given our modern aesthetic sensitivities (in particular with regards to what we take to be the work of an individual genius) it would have been much better to leave it unfinished, at the point in which Gaudí's project no longer offered explicit guidance.

Unlike our local cathedral[0] which some say won't ever be completed because the construction seamlessly transitioned into the maintenance phase -- allegedly it will be covered by scaffolding for all of eternity.

There's a fun local legend about this being the result of a lost bet with the devil[1] (originally used as an explanation of the centuries-long pause during construction but now extended to the present day).

Amazingly enough you wouldn't know this by looking at photographs. As the scaffolding moves across the façade over the years, crafty photographers have managed to capture every last inch of it always making sure you can't see the scaffolding.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cologne_Cathedral

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eifel_Aqueduct#The_aqueduct_as...

Huh... The Wikipedia link you provided states "Work restarted in the 19th century and was completed, to the original plan, in 1880." So it is technically completed, but its maintenance is now basically year-round, is this correct?

Yeah, technically it was completed in 1880 but it was significantly damaged in WW2[0] and the stone used to construct it doesn't deal well with environmental factors (e.g. acidic rain and pigeon poop) so the cathedral has been undergoing year-round maintenance ever since (if not even before WW2).

There's even a dedicated stone mason workshop beside the cathedral itself (the "Dombauhütte", which according to its website currently employs about 60 people). They have replaced a lot of the weathered parts with more resilient replicas. I'm not sure what they do when they have to replace entire statues but I've heard about smaller parts being presented as a special honour to individuals (similar to fragments of the Berlin Wall).

[0]: Aerial photographs after WW2 gave rise to the urban legend that bomber pilots were instructed not to damage it and that it survived unscathed. Not only was there no such order, it would have been impossible to follow given the accuracies of bombing runs at the time. Until a decade ago there was a large piece of brick wall covering up some of the damage from WW2. In total, the Cathedral was hit by at least 70 bombs -- that its exterior didn't collapse should be attributed to its skilled architects rather than well-meaning Allied admirals or divine protection.

> allegedly it will be covered by scaffolding for all of eternity.

The first time I visited, I counted myself unlucky to have visited during maintenance. The second time I visited, I considered myself extremely unlucky to have visited twice during maintenance. By the third time I saw the Kölner Dom, I just assumed it would always be covered in scaffolding.

It has been a source of frustration because it seems as if I've never seen many of the great European works of architecture in their full glory.

The article says the targeted completion date is 11 years away. Like almost all long-term projects, it is likely to run much longer than expected.

I live in Barcelona, twenty minutes walk from Sagrada Familia. I enjoy watching it ever change as the development continues. I also marvel at the long queues of people outside of it most of the year, waiting to pay good money to enter what is still a construction site.

I really liked visiting it. And also wondered about the super long queues, when all you have to do is buy a ticket online and skip the queue entirely.

Exactly. I visited in April and used my phone to buy a ticket while sat in the park opposite.

It's the prettiest construction site I've ever visited, and the exhibits about it (particularly the string and weight models) were great.

"I also marvel at the long queues of people outside of it most of the year, waiting to pay good money to enter what is still a construction site."

The same can be said for any local that lives near a tourist zone. This coming from someone who lives next to WTC.

Brace for the 133 years construction timelapse squeezed in under three minutes.

Thinking of it, that would also serve as a timelapse of photography technique itself.

"It’s now in the final phase, with just another 11 years until completion."

Interestingly, 11 years is the time it took to completely rebuild Frauenkirche in Dresden (1994-2005), which had been destroyed in WWII. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dresden_Frauenkirche

That's incredible -- thanks for sharing! I'm amazed both at the speed and the fact that they had the nearly 300 year old original plans.

I find much of what this article says about timescales confusing.

The article says the building "has entered the home stretch of construction" but never clarifies what that actually means. Is there some important milestone that has just been passed?

(It says "six new towers will soon be added", but surely the fact that some new towers are going to be added in the near future isn't the kind of thing that can constitute entering the home stretch. It says the building is 70% complete, but that doesn't seem particularly home-stretch-y for something that's been under construction for over 130 years already.)

Other schedule-related oddities in the article: only 70% complete but 11 years to go after 133 have passed already (this could be reasonable, if construction is faster now than it used to be); "on track to be finished in 2026" except that immediately afterwards it says "some decorative elements could take up to six additional years" -- so, er, in 2026 it will be finished apart from the bits that aren't finished? (It's not like "decorative elements" are secondary to the design of the Sagrada Familia.)

Anyway, regardless of when (if ever) it gets completed, the Sagrada Familia is a glorious building even in its present construction-site state. Go see it.

I think they mean that they're now constructing the final facade (Gloria). Equally, would mean the other three sides are now completely done.

(ps, hi gjm11, jmb29 here)

Wikipedia (which is always right except when it's wrong) claims that construction of the Glory facade began in 2002.

I can't escape the suspicion that they just wanted to write an article about the Sagrada Familia (can't blame them for that) and felt that they had to come up with some topical-sounding spin on it.

[EDITED to add:] Oh, and hi! Long time no see.

Small but important correction, Sagrada Familia is not a Cathedral but a Basilica.

A Cathedral hosts the seat of the bishop. Barcelona already has a Cathedral, located in the old gothic district, between Via Laietana and Sant Jaume Square. AFAIK there are no plans to demote the existing Gothic Cathedral.

I first visited Sagrada Familia 5 years ago and remembered it to be one of the most amazing structures I had ever seen. But as the years passed, I wondered if my memory was fooling me because Barcelona is a beautiful city and you can get caught up in its ambiance.

Well, I got to visit it again last month, and it was just as amazing, if not more so. The inside is even more impressive than the outside.

It just beats me that parts of Sagrada familia were made out of concrete. Not quite the material one would expect to last for centuries.

Notre Dame, in Paris, broke ground in 1163 and was finished 182 years later. Gaudi's ahead of schedule...

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