👩🏽‍🎤 👌🏼 😂 How long can a long-term construction, which is destined to become a masterpiece 😫 💇🏼 👩🏽‍🍳

Our company "INSYSTEMS" is involved in large and small construction projects. We already wrote on Habré about our construction projects , and today we offer to reflect on grandiose construction projects of different eras, which, by today's standards, lasted a very long time, but as a result, these objects became monuments of world architecture.

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How to build before

If we shorten the history of the development of building technologies to three stages in the spirit of “came, saw, won”, it will turn out: the person learned that metal can be made from ore, invented reinforced concrete, and built a bulldozer. The invention of most mechanisms that seriously accelerated construction took place in the 20th century. And before that, manual labor remained the main thing at the construction site. To help people were wooden rollers, levers and lifting mechanisms. Typically, construction equipment was manufactured at the construction site, after completion of construction it was disassembled.

Since all the tools were elementary and did not significantly affect productivity, it was possible to speed up the construction only due to additional labor, which was impossible without huge budgets. Such money was allocated, first of all, for the construction of temples and cathedrals. Here it was possible to attract as many people as needed for construction in the shortest possible time. For example, the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (537) was built in just 6 years, which in those days was unrealistically fast for a temple 55.6 m high. But all 6 years 10,000 workers worked on it. Here it is - the price of a grandiose building that has become a symbol of Istanbul. For more than 1000 years, this cathedral remained the largest in the Christian world.

Not only labor, but also building materials cost a lot. The fact that the construction of religious buildings was very expensive, historians write. For example, American researcher Henry Kraus compared mortar with gold and took the metaphor in the title of his book Gold was the mortar: The economics of cathedral building. This book presents his research on financing the construction of some European cathedrals in the Middle Ages.

Each country has its own “golden” unfinished construction - in Spain (the famous Sagrada Familia), and in Cambodia (Angkor Wat), and in China, and, of course, in Russia. Such projects are worthy of adding to the list of wonders of the world, and no matter how long their construction is delayed, in the end it ended (for almost everyone).

So how long can the construction of a grandiose project worthy of becoming a monument of world architecture last?

The Great Wall of China - 2000 years

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One of the most famous buildings in the world, the construction of which took more than 2000 years. On the way the walls lie deserts and rivers, mountains and plains. The wall began to be built in the 3rd century BC. and completed in the middle of the 17th century A.D. At the same time, up to 300,000 people worked on the construction of the wall, and up to 2 million people were involved in the work.

The amount of raw materials used is measured in millions of tons. During the construction process, workers mainly received materials on site. The walls were made of sand, and for reliability, the space between the two walls was clogged with reed and willow. In the mountains, the wall was built of raw stone and various rocks. Centuries passed, technology improved, new materials appeared. The very last parts of the wall erected by the Ming Dynasty are made of brick and mortar - just like we do today.

A curious fact : some people think that the wall is visible from space, but this is a rumor that has been repeatedly refuted.

Sagrada Familia - over 137 years

We are sure that this is the first building that you remembered when you read the title of the article. The Antonio Gaudi project is still under construction. The first stone of the basilica was laid in 1882. In the year of Gaudi's death - in 1926 - the cathedral was built only a quarter, and will be symbolic if the construction is still completed on the 100th anniversary of the death.

Sagrada has its own website where you can see an optimistic forecast that the basilica can be completed in the 21st century. It is assumed that now the construction is 70% completed and has reached a height of 90.1 meters (and planned 172.5 m).

By the way, on this site you can connect to an online camera at any time and personally check how construction or restoration is progressing.

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This archival drawing of 1892 shows several lifts used in the construction of the crypt of the Sagrada Familia. This wooden structure is a system of pulleys with ropes - this type of crane was first used by the Romans and could lift up to 2.5 tons.

A curious fact : the Barcelona authorities said that there were no records that the construction permit ever requested in 1885 was ever issued. And now, 137 years after the start of construction, the city granted builders a license valid until 2026. Cross your fingers: they should succeed!

Angkor Wat (Cambodia) - 37 years old

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Angkor Wat was built between 1113 and 1150 years of our era. They say that this temple was built not 4 decades, but 4 hundreds of years, which is wrong. The problem with the dating of construction arose because Angkor Wat was located in the heart of the Khmer empire - the city of Angkor, and some consider the years of construction of the city (and this is just 400 years) - the years of construction of the temple.

The building is a three-level pyramid oriented to the west. The construction of the temple was carried out from the center to the periphery. From any point of view, only three of the five towers always open, so that by modern standards, Angkor Wat is a miracle of architecture.

The workers themselves dragged 5 million tons of sandstone used to build the temple, 50 km from the nearest quarry. About 300,000 people and 6,000 elephants took part in the construction of the miracle of architecture, which are just shown in the illustration.

The Khmer construction refers to the transitional stage of development of construction technology: brick and stone reproduce the forms and techniques of wooden architecture. For example, carvings on the walls imitate bamboo screens.

Curious fact : the temple complex in Angkor Wat is so famous that the Cambodians even put its image on their flag.

Cologne Cathedral - 632 years

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6 centuries is a worthy example of the German approach: if done, then only in high quality, even if for a long time. When the cathedral, begun in 1248, was completed at the end of the 19th century, it turned out to be the tallest building in the world (157 m). Later, the cathedral in Ulm (161 m) and US skyscrapers broke the record. It is important to clarify that the construction of the Cologne Cathedral was not carried out all 632: in 1437 the construction was stopped due to lack of money and equipment. By that time, the walls, the choir, the south tower, the base of the nave were ready, but the roof was made somehow and did not cover the inside of the temple from the weather. To complete the cathedral in the 19th century, it took more than 20 years to restore the part of it that had already been erected.

Want to ask how much the construction cost? Translated into modern money, a total of more than 1 billion euros was spent. The cathedral workshop employed more than 500 people, using the most modern construction technologies, such as a track-mounted cargo lifting system or steam engines.

Curious fact : 11 bells are installed in the cathedral, one of which ( Decke Pitter ) is the largest active bell in the world. It was cast in 1923, and it weighs 24 tons.

Milan Cathedral - 579th Anniversary

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Who could compete with the Germans in the construction of high-rise buildings? Of course, Italians. The largest cathedral in Europe and the fifth in the world, the Cathedral in Milan was founded in the same year that the great sculptor and Renaissance artist Donatello was born (1386), and completed when The Beatles released the Rubber Soul (1965) . The construction was too long even by Italian standards - 579 years. And in the language appeared a steady expression of fabbrica del duomo (the construction of the cathedral). So they say, when it took a lot of time to do something.

78 architects from Europe participated in the construction. The building was originally intended to be built of terracotta bricks, but then they used kondolsky marble from Lake Maggiore. Therefore, the facade turned out to be heterogeneous: there are pink, white and light gray areas. To deliver marble to the construction site, canals were specially dug in the city.

Complete the construction of the cathedral helped none other than Napoleon Bonaparte. In the early 1800s, after he conquered the city, he wanted to be crowned in the Duomo, which meant that it was urgent to complete the construction. Prior to the coronation, by his personal order, the decoration of the facade was urgently completed.

By the way, at about the time that the Italians completed the Duomo di Milano, restoration required the parts of the building that were built first.

Curious fact:construction did not end after the coronation of Napoleon. Until the second half of the XIX century, work was carried out to decorate the temple: new stained-glass windows, sculptures and other decorative elements were added. And only in 1965 the construction was finally completed.

Notre Dame Cathedral - 182

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The first stone of the building was laid in 1163. The towers were completed in 1245, and the entire cathedral in 1345. Different in style (Gothic and Romanesque) and towers of different heights and the western side of the cathedral indicate that different architects took part in the construction.

Notre Dame de Paris was one of the first buildings in the world to use the supporting external supports of an arched form - arched buttresses. They were not in the original draft. But thin walls, built to a certain height, began to crack, so external supports were erected around the entire cathedral.

Notre Dame Cathedral was the first Gothic cathedral. This architectural style implies an endless pursuit of heaven. Until then, no one imagined that the church could be of such a size, and the bell tower - so tall (69 m). To build this grandiose structure, much attention was paid to the improvement of lifting mechanisms.

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A curious fact: tax reports from Paris for 1296 and 1313 tell about the existence of two female masons, a tiler and a plasterer. Therefore, it is entirely possible that women builders participated in the construction of the cathedral.

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April 15, 2019 the whole world watched the fire of Notre Dame de Paris. Due to a severe fire, the spire, roof and watch were lost. The floors of the 19th and 13th centuries suffered. Now restoration work is underway, which, according to experts, will take at least 5 years.

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Unlike past eras, now the region’s economic resources do not greatly affect the speed of construction: a long-term construction may appear both in Vladivostok and Moscow. The reasons are as old as the world - a change of leadership, a change in the exchange rate, dishonesty of the management company, environmental obstacles that appeared at the construction site, etc. It is not difficult to establish who is to blame for stopping the construction in each specific case, but what to do next with the object is often completely unclear. Actually, there are not so many options: long-term construction can be left “as is” and turned into creative clusters, viewing platforms, objects for base jumping. You can try to finish building with all your might. And you can demolish everything and start a new construction site at this place. Modern builders should often analyze the mistakes of their predecessors in order to prevent them in their work.And if the construction is still delayed, let's hope that they build something outstanding.

Which of the modern buildings do you consider a work of art? How long have they been built?

How long can a long-term construction, which is destined to become a masterpiece