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Comment by mindwok | Hacker News Reader

The Sagrada Família gives me a kind of weird optimism and hope for technology and what it could be. I went to Europe for the first time this year, and I remember repeatedly thinking as I saw buildings like the Leaning Tower of Pisa or the Duomo in Florence, how sad it is that humanity doesn't build beautiful things anymore (fair enough when they take like 200 years).

Then you see this, a church over 100 years in the making, finally being realised in the last ~10 years because innovations in stone cutting have made these intricate designs more feasible and progress has rapidly improved. It's awesome.

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Many churches were in construction for over a century. Very typical and, although obviously people were elated when one was finished, getting there fast was not a source of anxiety.

The Church has all the time in the world.

Many churches were in construction for over a century, yes. Today? I’m not familiar with any examples other than Sagrada Familia, and even that one is almost finished. These multi-generation building projects seem to be a thing of the past.

Imagine trying to get funding today for a building project that is scheduled to be completed long after everyone alive today would be dead. I can’t imagine that being possible. It’s a pity: I wonder what wonders we could have built using modern technology over such a long timescale.

Hram Svetog Save (Church of Saint Sava) in Belgrade/Serbia started construction in 1935 and the exterior was finished in 2017. I haven’t been there in several years, but my understanding is that the interior is still being worked on and will continue for some years to come…

So not quite “over a century” but getting close. :)

The Cathedral of St John the Divine in New York is also unfinished, with construction in fits & starts since 1892: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_of_St._John_the_Divi...

I'd say we've stopped making these types of grand monuments, but that's been relatively recent. Think of things like the Chrysler building or the Empire State building, they have tons of unnecessary ornamentation and are still very impressive structures. But art deco architecture is kinda the last period I can think of where that was the case, although I'm definitely not an architecture expert. If there are more modern examples, please link them since I would love to be proved mistaken here.

We have plenty of modern monuments, but they are different. Adding to your NYC examples, I see Little Island and the Vessel as monuments of their own leagues.

Maybe something like Marina Bay Sands in Singapore (2010), fairly iconic outline.

> they have tons of unnecessary ornamentation

That's in the eye of the beholder.

Pertinent HN article + discussion, which I love to revisit every once and a while, even though I do not work in anything related to architecture.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23582942

The fact that so many people from all over the world are drawn to older architecture with "tons of unnecessary ornamentation" makes you think where we went wrong in recent decades.

I guess I may have phrased that slightly incorrectly. The ornamentation is unnecessary from a functional viewpoint, but that isn't a bad thing. It is one of the reasons those buildings are so good looking, and that is not a bad thing. All the ornamentation is one of the reasons both of those buildings are still tourist attractions and draw thousands of visitors a year. I just meant that the ornamentation is unnecessary from a functional viewpoint, they just did all that stonework to make them look nice. Which is an architectural trend I wish would catch on again.

Fair enough.

I think the "form over function" dogma has taken over to such an extent that it's creating miserable, concrete and glass hellscapes that are foisted upon the public by detatched "starchitects". A great point that was mentioned somewhere (maybe in that artlicle I linked) is that unlike other forms of art, architecture is forced into your view, whether you like it or not. If you hate modern art, you can simply avoid that msueum.

With newer stone CNC machines now advancing, hopefully we can recreate the beautiful, intricate craftsmanship of the past, and indeed even develop wacky, creative new forms too and move away from these horrible, bland designs that have taken over everywhere, and made every cityscape look generic and indistinct.

Early this year I visited the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi, it was built between 1994 and 2007 and it's definitely a grand monument, and amazing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheikh_Zayed_Grand_Mosque

But in the West I'd say yes, we have pretty much stopped. One more sign of our decadence. You have to go elsewhere to see this kind of projects.

> One more sign of our decadence.

Isn't it a sign of the opposite? Grand buildings for the sake of being grand sounds more decadent than spending the time, effort and money on something else.

I think I might have used the wrong (or at least, a somewhat inaccurate) word. I was thinking in Spanish, where "decadencia" just means "decline", and just translated literally. But in English "decadence" carries extra connotations of luxury, pleasure, etc. that I just forgot. What I meant is that it's one more sign of the decline of the West, but I didn't intend to link that decline to hedonism (which is a very Anglo-Saxon/protestant thing to do, hence probably the different connotations of the word in English with respect to Romance languages, but this view is not something I really adhere to).

Anyway, I would argue that "being grand" is not useless, and this kind of monuments do have a value. From a shallow point of view, they bring lots of tourism. But apart from that, they have artistic, cultural, symbolic and, in some cases, religious value. They attract people and make the cities they are in more desirable. So I do think not building them anymore is a sign of

humanity doesn't build beautiful things anymore

There was a time when architecture was the height of showing off, showing off skill, artistry, etc. I think we build beautiful things today, but they aren't necessarily buildings. Ok, 8½ might not be as impressive as the Sagrada Familia, but it is beautiful all the same.

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