[obastani]

Not an answer to your question, but the Sagrada Famila [1] began construction in 1882, and is projected to be completed around 2030. It's an immense (and beautiful) structure. Just want to point out that it's not just a matter of the buildings being built a long time ago; this kind of long-term construction is still happening today.

[hinkley]

That said, Christopher Wren was in high demand for designing churches after the Great Fire, So he made a deal: I will design you a church but no steeple (yet). Once the backlog of churches cleared he designed the steeples, and some churches had a 20 year gap.

Even pre-industrial London could crank out enough churches in a dozen years to keep a celebrated architect booked solid. But that’s an exceedingly dense urban era, capable of supporting a large array of skilled labor.

[mehrdadn]

I... just can't wrap my head around this. Is it that they actually take that long with enough people, or they have too few people working on them?

[readams]

They're specifically using old-style techniques to build it, and doing a sort of fund-as-you-go structure where donations finance the construction. This is combined with the fact that the building is really complicated and every block has to be custom-carved into a unique shape.

There's also likely an element of not really wanting it to be done since the construction itself is a big part of the draw of the building for tourism.

[close04]

And yet the author of the present article would simply judge it by weight and say "with certainty" it must have taken only a fraction of the time.

[ALittleLight]

I hadn't heard of it, it seen pictures, until we went to see it in Spain. The building is absolutely mind boggling. The sort of thing that makes you proud to be a human.

When you see it, the timeline starts to make sense.

[teruakohatu]

Funding but also they are to an extent a giant work of art, adding more people does not produce a better work of art.

[goto11]

Funding has been the limiting factor, as far as I know. There have been long breaks where no work was being done, and it was damaged during the civil war. Also the building is immense and very detailed.

[ReptileMan]

The fact that Gaudi's original plans were lost in a fire don't help