Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by mkl 1843 days ago
That wasn't the original plan though.
2 comments

Although medieval cathedral construction plans did often have timelines of roughly a century. The reconstruction of Notre Dame in Paris is expected to be 20–40 years which puts it awfully close to the 2070 completion date as well.
If we’re talking cathedral delays, Köln Cathedral was started in 1248 and finished in 1880.
Quite a turn of events that made it possible to resume that building after the original plans were found, here is the summary i found:

> In the 1790s, when the French Revolutionary Army drew close to Cologne, the Cathedral treasures were removed for safekeeping. These included the plans and drawings for the west front, which were transported with other items to Amorbach and eventually lost and forgotten. In Amorbach, the large “F-Plan” was used by a family for some time to dry beans, and later wrapped around their son’s new suitcase to protect it as he traveled to the university in Darmstadt. It was in Darmstadt, in the attic of the inn where the son arrived that the Plan was rediscovered and recognised by G. Moller as the missing drawing of the west front.

Source https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/younghistorians/2012/oral...