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The thing that amazes me about Notre Dame, and several other structures of that era, is that it took 200 years to build. The reason this is so amazing is that
by binarymax 7y ago
The thing that amazes me about Notre Dame, and several other structures of that era, is that it took 200 years to build. The reason this is so amazing is that the architects and planners knew it would not be completed in their lifetime, and yet they progressed for a greater cause.
We don't really have projects like that anymore. Contemporary structures and infrastructure are designed to be completed within the lifetime of the creator.
We might be able to attribute that to advances in technology allowing for faster development times. But sometimes it seems we've lost sight of the grandeur that existed at those times, and perhaps we are not challenging ourselves enough.
- gppk 7y agoBack in the days when Kings reigned for tens of years, whereas now we have 4 year politician cycles...
- jimmy1 7y agoI guess some of us do. But then you have Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong-un, The Saud family, etc.
- citilife 7y agoAnd their children would reign after them, so monarchs are much more willing to take a long-term approach.
- camochameleon 7y agoNot unlike a president granting their children and children-in-law positions within the country's administration.
- busterarm 7y agoNot unlike the duties given to presidential spouses.
- PorterDuff 7y agoor Presidential brothers.
- _emacsomancer_ 7y agoNot really. That just encourages as much looting as possible while they're in control.
- JackFr 7y agoBut remember the cathedral was built, owned and run by a supranational organization, sometimes supporting, sometimes in conflict with the monarch.
- teddyh 7y agoBut was it funded by that organization? I was under the impression that big projects like cathedrals were used by the church as essentially huge visible PR projects, which attracted funding from people who wanted to be seen to donate (providing PR for themselves). Some of the funding might also have been siphoned off to the church itself, I can imagine. This pattern continues today – witness the speed at which funding for rebuilding has been publicly pledged by people wishing to be widely seen to do so.
- ForHackernews 7y agoSagrada Família in Barcelona[0] was started in 1882 and is scheduled to be completed by 2030. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Fam%C3%ADlia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Fam%C3%ADlia
- JackFr 7y agoSt. John the Divine in NYC has been under construction for over 100 years, with no completion date set and future funding uncertain.
- telesilla 7y agoIsn't one reason for this because it's such a huge attraction generating so much money, that finishing it might actually bring in less money? That's anecdotal from my Barcelona colleagues complaining..
- maze-le 7y ago> "We don't really have projects like that anymore." Well, there is the ITER nuclear fusion reactor project. It was planned in the 70ies, construction started in the 90ies, projected construction-finish will probably be around 2025 and the first projected long-term-stable plasma will probably be achieved around 2035. OK 60 years is not 200, but this still is far longer than any other contemporary infrastructure building I can think of.
- kenneth 7y agoThe 10,000 year clock is a relevant contemporary example. Not exactly the same situation, but similarly it's a project that won't be seen to completion by anyone involved in it (if completion means the clock working as intended for 10,000 years). Also, some of our space missions are like this, e.g. Voyager 1.
- JustSomeNobody 7y ago> The reason this is so amazing is that the architects and planners knew it would not be completed in their lifetime, and yet they progressed for a greater cause. Not only that, but the ones who followed them didn't balk at working on a "legacy" project.
- _shadi 7y agomove fast and burn things
- bluGill 7y agoMany of them did in fact object to working on a legacy project. Many long term projects have significant architectural changes over the years, meaning that the whole is not completely consistent in style. The Spire at Notre Dame for example (added in the 1800s) is one way latter generations objected)
- huffmsa 7y agoIt was replaced in the 1800s. The original one was all beat up after 600 years.
- NotPaidToPost 7y agoIt was not added in the 1800s, it was put back mostly identical to the original. It had been removed in 1786.
- bluGill 7y agoThe replacement was made larger, and there was controversy about that.
- NotPaidToPost 7y agoEspecially online in 2019, apparently... Suffice it to say that the spire wasn't added as was claimed and leave it at that.
- kzrdude 7y agoWe have infrastructure that is under continuous maintenance, too. Sure, it is already completed but we are repairing it for both the close and far future. And we plan new bridges and tunnels that might never benefit the people that drew up their first plan.
- swalsh 7y agoImagine the kinds of things we could build in a multiple life time project using modern day techniques.
- b_tterc_p 7y agoMaybe a new fighter jet Practically though, this doesn’t really make sense. Kind of like waterfall development but tripled down on all the bad parts
- TheHypnotist 7y agoI have a hard time grasping what this thing could even be. Technology seemingly moves much faster now than it did back then. Anything we start now, in 200 years could look like it was started in the stone age. But again, i cant even imagine what that something is. After millenia of using horse powered travel we've gone from vehicles, to planes, to the moon, to mars in about 100 years.
- oblio 7y agoThe Liverpool and Manchester Railway (steam powered trains): 1830. Daimler (internal combustion cars): 1892. Wright Flyer III (plane): 1903 Apollo 11: 1969. Even steam powered trains were almost inconceivable to the average person living in say, 1700, just imagine what that person would have thought about Apollo 11! Heck, I imagine even Napoleon in 1821 couldn't really imagine the mechanized world awaiting just 50 years in the future.
- JudgeWapner 7y ago* high-speed rail with similar scale to the US interstate system. * subway system in Los Angeles on par with NYC * any-speed rail link between US and Russia * (saw this from a poster below: interstellar probe )
- basch 7y agoImagine how big of a stone structure we could build if we used modern CAD and CNC and just stacked giant bricks for 200 years. We should be one upping the pyramids and churches.
- zitterbewegung 7y agoI think we have smaller size projects that move toward a common goal in the modern era. Take for example Aircraft or faster processors or AI. We have a longer term goal (faster processors) but a bunch of short term projects (x86 / POWER).
- derekp7 7y agoSo basically we now do Agile, whereas in the past it was all Waterfall?
- goobynight 7y agoEven in the past, you could use agile. e.g. roads. It's only constructions like cathedrals that you can't really use until it's nearly complete. Imagine having to wait until 2015 for Google to ship its first suite of products. The cashflow and other things wouldn't make sense. Google is essentially under constant construction though, as is a University which adds buildings every so often.
- treis 7y agoI don't think that's accurate. There was a whole lot of: "Ok, remove the support scaffolding" "Oh crap it's falling! Put it back, put it back!" followed up by a design tweak. Or the King/Bishop decided that they wanted something different and the design was changed.
- LyndsySimon 7y agoThis comparison has been made before - "The Cathedral and the Bazaar." It's an excellent book, and I highly recommend it. https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-cathedral-the-bazaar https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-cathedral-the-bazaar
- jakeinspace 7y agoAt the individual level I'd like to think that there are many people who care about future generations and find motivation to work towards their benefit. I don't expect me or my generation or my children's generation to live on Mars, but I still see space exploration as a multi-generation effort to benefit and possibly preserve future people. Not that I'm thinking about all that while struggling with a race condition.
- ColinWright 7y agoAbout Long Now The Long Now Foundation was established in 01996 to develop the Clock and Library projects, as well as to become the seed of a very long-term cultural institution. The Long Now Foundation hopes to provide a counterpoint to today's accelerating culture and help make long-term thinking more common. We hope to foster responsibility in the framework of the next 10,000 years. http://longnow.org/about/ http://longnow.org/about/
- samfriedman 7y agoFascinating. Reminds me of the Neal Stephenson novel, Anathem, in which academic enclaves exist for the purpose of safeguarding knowledge for the long haul and against external calamities.
- _emacsomancer_ 7y agohttp://longnow.org/events/02008/sep/09/anathem-book-launch/ http://longnow.org/events/02008/sep/09/anathem-book-launch/
- privong 7y agoNeal Stephenson has been involved with Long Now and the 10,000 year clock since 1999 and that involvement led to Anathem: https://www.nealstephenson.com/anathem.html https://www.nealstephenson.com/anathem.html
- bitwize 7y agoThe Long Now project was an inspiration for Anathem.
- pixelperfect 7y agoLong Now Foundation is thinking about the distant future, but as far as I understand the building phase of their current projects will be completed within a single generation.
- ramblerman 7y ago> We don't really have projects like that anymore Sad but true, although one that is still running is the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. Started 1882, and expected to reach completion in 2026.
- galangalalgol 7y agoIt is amazing. They started with chisels and though the original tools are also still employed they use additive manufacturing and cnc as well now. Because of those advances and generous funding from some Catholic societies it will complete many years ahead o shedule with more features than it woul have had.
- tasubotadas 7y agoIs it? Is it really sad that nobody wants to spend $100M-$10B on a building that's the only function is to show off wealth and power?
- rayiner 7y ago> We might be able to attribute that to advances in technology allowing for faster development times. But sometimes it seems we've lost sight of the grandeur that existed at those times, and perhaps we are not challenging ourselves enough. I'd argue it's a good thing that our modern political systems aren't well-suited for pissing away our society's resources on monuments to hubris.
- deathanatos 7y agoWhat about mega-scale engineering projects? E.g., a space craft to Alpha Centauri, to study another star close up? It's 4 years at the speed of light, and it'll likely take us much longer. Or what if the planet there orbiting Proxima Centauri b in the habitable zone is capable of sustaining life, and it could be our first stepping stone off of Earth? For that matter, what if a megaproject is required for a space faring race, and democracy is the great filter?
- oblio 7y agoThere's mega-scale engineering projects happening every day, all across the world. Just look around. Or on Youtube :)
- moreira 7y agoAmusingly, I suppose that war, and the urge to beat the Soviet Union, is what even got people to the moon in the first place. Without it, I sincerely believe we still wouldn't have been there. If the Cold War was still raging and Russia decided -today- to colonise Mars, it'd immediately go from a "someday/maybe" to "within the next 5-10 years".
- rayiner 7y agoWe spent a trillion dollars sending a man to the moon. We can do megaprojects if the exigency exists. But the bar for exigency is much higher now and that's a good thing. Notre Dame, by contrast, never did a damn thing for the French peasants that were taxed to pay for it.
- 7y ago
- maxxxxx 7y agoThere are also buildings where they stopped in the middle so a church has only one tower instead of the planned to.
- _shadi 7y agoCologne Cathedral was finished more than 500 years after the work started
- baud147258 7y agoAnd I think that the people there are very happy that a steel roof was chosen, instead of built in wood, as intended by the original plans.
- tpurves 7y agoDoes Dwarf Fortress count? It may turn out to be just one lifetime of work, but what appeals to me romantically about that crazy product, is that (until recently anyway) it was never in any rush to appear complete, and one could imagine a future, like a software Sagrata Familia, that it could survive it’s original crazy/genius architech and people could pick up the torch and continue to add even more baroque and unfathomable complexity for at least another century or two.
- jharger 7y agoIt counts to me :) That's one of the things I love about that game too, and it makes me want to do the same.
- klodolph 7y agoDoes the cathedral of of St John the Divine in New York count? Planning started in 1887, construction began in 1892, the first services were in 1899 (in the crypt!), the cathedral was fully open in 1941, construction was disrupted by the war, and construction was continued in 1979, with the last scaffolding removed in 2007.
- gpvos 7y agoThe Dom of Cologne (Köln) was finished in the 19th century, and the roof supports (not visible from inside or outside of the church) are actually made of steel. It's amazing to see this relatively modern technology in the "attic" of the church.
- PorterDuff 7y agoWeakening core culture.
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoThe Eisenhower interstate system took decades to build and is still receiving incremental improvements. We will probably continue to use it for centuries.
- Reason077 7y ago> "We don't really have projects like that anymore." See Gaudi's Sagrada Familia for a modern day equivalent. Under construction for 137 years and counting. Current estimate for completion is in the 2030s, if all goes well. (I highly recommend the guided tour if you're ever in Barcelona. The history of it's engineering and construction is fascinating even if you're not that into Gaudi, or cathedrals.)
- globuous 7y agoMetro networks, airports and universities are also very good examples of architectural structures that have been or will be built over many generations. Metro networks are particularly good examples because they truly are built from rock unlike pretty much any newer huge building in modern countries (Sagrada being an exception). Back in the days, only kings and powerful religious groups could build such structures.
- masklinn 7y agoIt's a very different situation though, a cathedral can't really be used until it's finished or at least significantly complete. A complete metro network might take 150 years to build but each line is useful on their own, the final network is composed of several semi-independent lines which get added and expanded over time, and even if the system's fulness is designed at its origin with multi-decade plans it's useful long before that. Same with road & highway systems, or other public transport networks (trains, tramways, …). They're useful and have a point long before they're "finished", assuming there's even such a thing.
- mcv 7y agoMany medieval buildings have developed in the same way, though. I don't know if it's true for the Notre Dame, but plenty of cathedrals and castles started out much smaller than they are today, and saw regular expansions over the course of centuries. And that iconic spire of the Notre Dame was added in the 19th century.
- 7y ago
- mikeash 7y agoOn the other hand, what kind of useful projects would take so long to build today? Even massive infrastructure like the Channel Tunnel or the Panama Canal can be finished well within one lifetime. Technology changes too fast for that to be reasonable these days. Let’s say I design some massive bridge that will take 100 years to build. Why would we start construction today, when technological changes might render it completely obsolete before it’s even done? The fact that people were able to plan and execute a centuries-long construction project for a monument to society’s shared imaginary friend is fascinating and speaks well of them but it doesn’t seem like the sort of thing we should strive to emulate.
- kijin 7y agoSpace exploration comes to mind. What if we decided to send a probe to a nearby star system to explore its exoplanets? Even with superior propulsion technology, the probe might take hundreds of years to get there. Which means we'll need to find a way to keep the probe's computing and communications systems functional for all those years, not to mention maintain compatible systems on Earth. Moreover, once the probe reaches its destination, any command we send will take several years to take effect.
- mikeash 7y agoIf you were doing it today, you’d be better off putting your effort into improved propulsion. A time may come when you hit the limits and need to carry out a very long project to send a probe to another star, but we’re not there now.
- kijin 7y agoThere's always going to be better propulsion just around the corner, at least until you reach something like 0.999c. At some point you just say "fuck it, we're launching this probe now."
- mikeash 7y agoThe point when your probe arrives soonest is not the point where your propulsion technology is fastest, certainly, but that point is very unlikely to be now.
- SilasX 7y ago>The reason this is so amazing is that the architects and planners knew it would not be completed in their lifetime, and yet they progressed for a greater cause. And got paid (which, in fairness, still means the money-men were thinking that far ahead). >We don't really have projects like that anymore. Contemporary structures and infrastructure are designed to be completed within the lifetime of the creator. The deep space probes from NASA took something like 20 years to reach their destination, on top of the mission planning time, and involved a lot of senior engineers, who didn't get to see it to completion. But you're right, I can't think of anything on a 100+ year timescale.
- rexpop 7y ago> the money-men were thinking that far ahead I wonder, in all that hierarchy, and in all those networks, who was "thinking far ahead", and who was cynically participating in the endeavor for personal gain, while quenching existential thirst elsewhere. In modern society, the majority of our lives are spent in the latter mode, I think: no one's passionate opus is sugar water or targeted ads, yet they occupy millions of us. Incredible things can be done by people who are "phoning it in," by firms stacked top-to-bottom with talent whose passions lie elsewhere. Is it possible that cathedrals, too, were constructed entirely obligatorily?
- werbel 7y agoI suggest watching following video of Neil deGrasse Tyson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joARXZagTuM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joARXZagTuM It opens with following conclusion: There were only 3 bottom-level motivators where it comes to achieving grand things in human history: * Survival * Wealth * Praise of deity There are things people still do that span generations to satisfy the first 2 drivers (like Norway being cautious about its oil reserves or overall push towards clean energy and mitigating climate change, China's investment in its own and Africa's infrastructure). People simply got smart enough not to throw monumental amount of effort and resources to please a deity. Of course that's a massive simplification as then there's a question if the organisation that "wrote the check" really did that purely because of the spiritual beliefs of their own or their people.
- mcv 7y agoThough religion has certainly been in decline, people still build great things for religious reasons. The Sagrada Familia is the most obvious example. But there have also been great things achieved for other reasons, like the moon landings or the ISS. Is that survival? Wealth? Or does it count as something we believe in?
- werbel 7y agoYou're right. I should've put "For the most part" before the last paragraph. When it comes to the moon landing or the ISS... Of course you can say that's because we're explorers. The moon landing was pure survival (don't let the commies win), ISS is research and maybe the researchers put in the effort for a sense of discovery but the money comes from governments and it flows mostly because of a promise of economic or military advancement. I'm not a cynic in that regard. I love the architecture of religious monuments, I love the fact that we as a species achieved magnificent things like reaching the moon or discovering how black holes work. You can appreciate all of that without kidding yourself about where the money comes from.
- ATsch 7y ago> We don't really have projects like that anymore. Contemporary structures and infrastructure are designed to be completed within the lifetime of the creator. Well, it might not be intentional, but the new Berlin city airport certainly looks like it's going to be a contemporary example.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- walterstucco 7y agoThey are in space now There are monuments of our passage on the moon and throughout the deep space, beyond solar system They have the same importance of pyramids, maybe even more.
- scriptkiddy 7y agoThough it didn't take 200 years, the Altare della Patria took 40 years to build from 1885 to 1935 and is quite grand and impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altare_della_Patria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altare_della_Patria . It was actually my favorite structure in Rome when when I visited with the Pantheon in a close second. I believe that it counts as an example of a long running and grandiose engineering project.
- yardie 7y ago> We don't really have projects like that anymore. I think we still have those projects but they are more utilitarian rather than religious. Chernobyl and Yucca Mountain will be our generation's cathedral to nuclear power. Outside of the weirdly curious I don't imagine it as a major tourist destination.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- vowelless 7y ago> We don't really have projects like that anymore. We do. I propose - the greatest testament to the Might of God and the insignificance of Man - the Second Avenue Subway.
- rjf72 7y agoIt sometimes seems that democracy, somewhat paradoxically, trends towards division. The grand projects of times past were generally created by entities where their successor would generally be vested in their success. Be this in the form of religions organizations or non-democratic political entities such as monarchies. In democracy this kinship frequently does not exist between successive entities, and there is even often an effort to dismantle the works of a previous administration as well as blaming any faults on them. There are also basic democratic political problems. One very myopic, and very common, political argument is of the form: "You want to [do something amazing] while there's [people dying of cancer] [kids starving to death in Africa] [etc] [etc]?!" This argument feels reasonable to most people, and can be used to frame a candidate (who wants to do grand things) as being out of touch. And it's extremely effective. It makes it difficult to spend large amounts of money on things outside of those that can be justified on a very immediate level, such as war. The space program is probably the greatest project the modern United States has engaged in. And if it had carried on it's likely our species would now today inhabit bodies beyond just this planet. But it was not continued. This [1] is a song from the 70s that was published shortly before Nixon, who had a long standing animosity with JFK since losing a razor thin election to him in 1960, would completely gut the space program - which was very much a reflection of JFK. So determined were his efforts that in 1972, as Apollo 17 was returning to earth during his presidency, he stated "This may be the last time in this century that men will walk on the Moon." He initially even wanted to cancel both the Apollo 16 and 17 missions fearing that a mishap during them could negatively affect his reelection chances. The entire space program emphasizes all of the issues with democracy and grand projects. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goh2x_G0ct4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goh2x_G0ct4
- swamp40 7y ago> We don't really have projects like that anymore. We strive for Mars, knowing full well neither us nor our children will ever see the cities to come.
- Erwin 7y agoMaybe 200 years from now, we'll see the 9 years of delays for the new BER airport in the same light: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Brandenburg_Airport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Brandenburg_Airport
- gmiller123456 7y ago>The thing that amazes me about Notre Dame, and several other structures of that era, is that it took 200 years to build. Not really. At least not in the sense that structures are built today. The first mass was held just 19 years after construction began [1]. And many additions were added, and plans modified along the way. It's not like the original plan was 200 years of construction before it would serve any real useful purpose. There was actually construction being done at the time of the fire, but that doesn't mean it took 900 years to build. [1] https://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/history/as-notre-dame-burns-a-look-at-its-800-year-history.aspx https://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/history/as-notre-dame-...
- MagicPropmaker 7y ago> We don't really have projects like that anymore. Gnu HURD?
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago> We don't really have projects like that anymore The Second Avenue Subway in Manhattan is giving that line a run for its money.
- hinkley 7y agoWe've gotten really good at using petroleum and electricity to accelerate building construction, to be sure. But we still have public works projects that span eras. Some of our big infrastructure projects, and things like national parks are constantly evolving. If I were president I could make a national park today but it's just lines on a map. Generations of work may have to be done to turn it into a functioning forest, especially now when we are questioning what the definition of 'functioning forest' is and how humans fit into it. Whatever we build today, we know it's gonna be wrong and a great deal of it will have to be redone.
- basch 7y agoAlso CNC to cut stone, vs cut by hand.
- hinkley 7y agoI figured that would be under the petroleum and electricity column but sure, that's definitely true. They also use some mighty damned big trucks and explosives in quarries. I wonder how much of the 80 years of building a cathedral is just sourcing and paying for the stone. I also love the solution Christopher Wren came up with after the Great Fire. Everyone wanted him to design their church. He made a compromise: I'll build you your church but you don't get a bell tower until after everyone else gets a church. So he went around building churches and then swung back through to add bell towers onto them.
- justinator 7y agoand yet they progressed for a greater cause Well, the workers did it out of a sense of devotion, and in some cases as a way to guarantee their spot in heaven. They Catholic Church would use this quite a bit. For example: Commission a grand religious painting? Go to Heaven. That's why you sometimes see the people who paid for say, a mural in the mural itself getting blessed by ol' JC himself.
- mrep 7y ago> We don't really have projects like that anymore. Contemporary structures and infrastructure are designed to be completed within the lifetime of the creator. Most projects but not all. This is why spacex has such a big fan base because if you have seen their pictures of mars, they are not only trying to colonize it, but terraform it and even options like sending hundreds of nukes at the poles to induce warming and atmospheric buildup are expected to take hundreds of years.
- lkadr 7y agoNo one working today on the Onkalo nuclear waste repository will see it being sealed 100 years from now.