How many generations does it take to build a great cathedral?

I recently returned from Europe and one thing that struck me as was the difference in time perspectives. I live in Canada where a generation seems like a long time. But after two weeks in Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic, it seemed normal that a church could take generations to build I don't mean a couple generations. I mean more like ten or twenty generations, spanning centuries. It may be hard to imagine from a modern perspective. My wife and I got quite stressed when our house renovation took almost ten months to complete. So consider the conversation you might have reviewing plans for a new cathedral you want to build that has no chance of being completed in your lifetime. Or even of being finished in the lifetime of your children, your grandchildren or their great grandchildren. Uh, could we maybe cut some corners and shave off a century? The Cologne Cathedral The most visited landmark in Germany is the Cathedral in Cologne overlooking the Rhine. This jaw dropping church inspires more than 20,000 visitors, every single day! No doubt many (like me) wonder at how something this massive could have been built with medieval technology. True it was completed in 1880, but most of the heavy lifting was done by 1473. The timeline for the Cathedral stretches back to August 15, 1248, when the foundation stone was laid. It was to be the final resting place for the remains of the Three Kings (i.e. the Three Wise Men) which were brought to Cologne from Milan a hundred years earlier and needed somewhere special to spend eternity. For the next seventy-four years work proceeded until the eastern arm of the church was completed and consecrated in 1322. Soon after, work began on the western section and continued for over a hundred years. Finally, in 1473 they finished the south tower as high as the belfry level and crowned it with a huge crane in hopes of finishing soon (at least by their standards). In fact, the crane graced the Cologne skyline for the next 400 years as work on the unfinished cathedral languished. But in 1842, the original plans for the façade were re-discovered, and work began again to finish the project once and for all. Finally, 632 years after it was started, Germany’s largest cathedral was opened on August 14, 1880 and a national holiday was declared to celebrate. I guess so! Over twenty-five generations had lived and died since the original cornerstone was laid by Archbishop Konrad von Hochstaden in 1248. St. Vitus Cathedral I had thought perhaps the Cologne Cathedral was unique in its long gestation and birth, but I found other examples of churches with a similar history. Perhaps the most impressive we saw was St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague, the largest and most important church in the Czech Republic. St. Vitus also has a long history stretching back to 1060. But the present day Gothic Cathedral that we visited was started in 1344, when the foundation stone was laid by King John of Bohemia. The master architect was Matthias of Arras of France, who would only live to see a tiny section of the project completed, namely the outer arcades and ambulatory. Although stunning, it was just an appetizer. The main meal was centuries away from completion. Various master builders took over after his death, including Peter Parler who was more of sculpture than an architect. He imagined or maybe dreamed about the cathedral as an almost mythically large sculpture. But time is not kind to those who dream that big. (Parler was also a little busy working on the Charles Bridge in Prague). By the time he died, only a little bit more of the church was done, primarily the choir and parts of the transept. His sons took over and were succeeded by other master builders who lived to see sections of the great tower completed. But by 1450, over a hundred years into the project, work was halted with the beginning of a war. Little or no work was done for more than a hundred years, and then a great fire in 1541 seemed like it might be the end of the half-finished cathedral, closed up with a temporary wall. A few attempts were made to restart the project, but again, like the cathedral in Cologne, centuries would pass without any real work being done. It was not until 1844 when a group of German architects formed a collective to complete the cathedral, that anything happened with the ghostly framework of the cathedral. It would take another 85 years before St. Vitus Cathedral was officially opened in 1929. Many of the elements from Peter Parler’s original 1352 designs remained intact and in fact, were harmoniously executed throughout the building. Six hundred year building projects You might wonder if we have lost something in our modern world of 100+ storey condos and skyscrapers. Indeed they are engineering marvels, but are they in the same league as a stone structure built without the benefit of modern machines and designed by those who could only see the final result in their imaginations? Would we begin a project today that would take more than one hundred years to complete? When you stand in front of these cathedrals in awe, I think what you are seeing is the power of time - stone columns made up of 400 ton sections, that took a decade to craft, assemble and finish, or an archway under construction for the entire lifetime of its team of craftsmen. Over many, many years the full magnificence of these structures take shape. The designer's vision is brought to life slowly, decade-after-decade, with intervening wars, plagues, famines and fires along the way to its eventual completion. ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day.’ I think I finally get it!