Pub­lic-tran­sit tasks are the reli­gious construct­ing endeav­ors of twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry Amer­i­ca, much less as a result of they’re moti­vat­ed by the assumption in any par­tic­u­lar deity than by how a lot time and mon­ey they now require to com­plete. Take New York’s Sec­ond Avenue sub­approach, whose lower than two-mile-long first part opened in 2017: its con­struc­tion had price $4.45 bil­lion, and the road itself had first been professional­posed 97 years ear­li­er. That’s noth­ing by historical stan­dards: the Tem­ple of Apol­lo at Didy­ma took six cen­turies; the Tem­ple of Olympian Zeus at Athens lagged a full 650 years behind sched­ule; and the Heraion of Samos finish­ed up cross­ing the 800-year mark.

These info come from the brand new Advised in Stone video above on “the longest con­struc­tion project in his­to­ry.” A few of the struc­tures cov­ered shall be famil­iar to Open Cul­ture learn­ers: as an illustration, Notre-Dame de Paris, which took close to­ly 200 years to construct (and which reopened simply this month after 5 years of fire-dam­age restore and restora­tion), or Sagra­da Família, which broke floor in 1882 and is sched­uled for com­ple­tion in 2026 — for those who don’t depend dec­o­rat­ing its exte­ri­or, which may go on till 2034. Orna­males­ta­tion is impor­tant in archi­tec­ture of this type: it’s why the Duo­mo di Milano, whose con­struc­tion started in 1386, was­n’t tru­ly com­plete till 1965.

The dec­o­ra­tion course of was additionally professional­longed within the case of the Basil­i­ca Papale di San Pietro in Cit­tà di Vat­i­cano, or Saint Peter’s Basil­i­ca, which took 120 years to construct, span­ning the ear­ly six­teenth and sev­en­teenth cen­turies. Because the time­line goes for such an ambi­tious challenge in that period, it may have been worse; that par­tic­u­lar Excessive Renais­sance church owes its noto­ri­ety to its sheer price, which works out to “tens of bil­lions” of dol­lars immediately. This video, being Microsoft-spon­sored, leads as much as that comfortable­ware large’s 3D, AI-assist­ed repli­ca of Saint Peter’s Basil­i­ca, which we fea­tured here on Open Cul­ture when it was launched this previous fall. Per­haps behold­ing its glo­ry will give New York­ers a lit­tle extra religion that the Sec­ond Avenue Sub­approach will attain one hundred and twenty fifth Road of their life­instances.

Relat­ed con­tent:

An Archi­tec­tur­al Tour of Sagra­da Família, Antoni Gaudí’s Auda­cious Church That’s Been Under Con­struc­tion for 142 Years

The Cre­ation & Restora­tion of Notre-Dame Cathe­dral, Ani­mat­ed

Explore the World’s First 3D Repli­ca of St. Peter’s Basil­i­ca, Made with AI

The Beau­ty & Inge­nu­ity of the Pan­theon, Ancient Rome’s Best-Pre­served Mon­u­ment: An Intro­duc­tion

How the World’s Biggest Dome Was Built: The Sto­ry of Fil­ip­po Brunelleschi and the Duo­mo in Flo­rence

How Design­ing Build­ings Upside-Down Rev­o­lu­tion­ized Archi­tec­ture, Mak­ing Pos­si­ble St. Paul’s Cathe­dral, Sagra­da Família & More

Primarily based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His tasks embody the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the ebook The State­much less Metropolis: a Stroll by way of Twenty first-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on the social web­work for­mer­ly often known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.