Why is LA SAGRADA FAMILIA taking so long to construct ?
 

While in India a few months ago I had a chance to visit the remarkable Hindu temple, Akshardham. Akshardham is an interesting temple in that it not only boasts some of the most magnificent sculptures and detailing seen anywhere, but it was also built in less than 5 years and constructed using methods that date back thousands of years. In fact, the entire temple is built without the use of steel nor concrete. Akshardham officially opened in 2005.


It was then that I pondered the construction of another temple, La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. This church also lays claim to an outstanding level of detail and yet it has been under constuction since 1882 and is not expected to be complete until 2026.


Though both edifices are host to an impressive level of detail, how is it that Akshardham was completed in a fraction of the time compared with La Sagrada Familia?




To give readers a quick glimpse at the intricacies, here I present a few photos of each monument.



Sagrada Familia


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3282/...7f5124ab_b.jpg

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurapadgett/3044840024/



http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3130/...45310d3d_b.jpg

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/25767209@N02/2632575900/



http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2349/...46e2978b_o.jpg

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tuga7/2038911306/



http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2331/...97ddaf43_b.jpg

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mark_boucher/1678892845/



http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3345/...dc271c4c_b.jpg

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/carreon/3329849356/


Akshardham


http://www.akshardham.com/photogalle...hardham03f.jpg


http://www.akshardham.com/photogalle...oto/dom16f.jpg


http://www.akshardham.com/photogalle...andovar02f.jpg


http://www.akshardham.com/photogalle.../pillar03f.jpg


http://www.akshardham.com/photogalle...lephant07f.jpg


http://www.akshardham.com/photogalle...o/panal07f.jpg


http://www.akshardham.com/photogalle.../pillar11f.jpg


Akshardham Photos Source: http://www.akshardham.com/photogallery/mandir/index.htm

As I understand it: Complexity and lack of funds.

Cite your photo sources of they will be removed. As per Flickr's TOS, photos must link back to their photo page. (The page where you see the title, description, comments, etc.)

The Sagrada Familia is structurally far more sophisticated than the Akshardham. Gaudi's articulation of concrete columns and piers makes the Akshardham's engineering look like Legos. Take into account also the difference in scale, considering that the Sagrada Familia will be vaulting over hundreds of feet in the air without steel while it looks like the Akshardham is just corbelled blocks rising 50-100 ft; in fact, you could probably fit multiple Akshardhams vertically into the completed Sagrada Familia. Also to be considered is that many of Gaudi's plans for the Sagrada Familia were lost in a fire years ago and much of the new plans are conjectural. It is not at all an issue of ornamental intricacy, which is what you are comparing them with here, but rather of structural and scalar means.

Here is a diagram that shows what has been completed and what has yet to be built:
http://www.fototime.com/12E21B8053EE69C/standard.jpg
fototime.com

sagrada familia has no source of funding other than admission charges & donations

edit: wiki says construction was interrupted by the spanish civil war & a lot of gaudi's original plans were destroyed by anarchists (i didn't think true anarchists were/are destructive like that; i thought they'd value it as a work of art). it will also be 170m when it's done also, compared with 43m for that akshardham temple. that akshardham temple also had a workforce of 10000 people (maybe not all onsite at the same time though)

Done!

La Sagrada Familia ec cush u piuadefar paertemj! :yes:

Pad ed'c urca noch noli cdlosdolarrh sanbriz dwum dhi Akshardham. Urca, Gaudi ocit ticejms dwut uli mad fili samfimdeamor umt duqi demi da samcdlosd. :yes:

In English please.

La Sagrada Familia is much more complex structurally speaking than the Akshardham. Also Gaudi used designs that are less-than conventional and haven't exactly been around for 1000's of years.

What language is that? It doesn't look like Catalan to my eyes (and if it were, I ought to be able to spot familiar Romance cognates).

all i can say is that both are very beautiful!!!!!-->totally off topic.
i think size does matter in this argument. plain and simple. if the other one is much bigger than the other, then for sure itll take more time to finish the bigger building.:-)

That image is quite incorrect, if you see the completed arched section on the left, that is supposed to be the size of the arched section on the "completed" diagram behind it. The four completed tall towers are not scaled correctly or the tall towers around the huge one are not scaled correctly, something is very out of whack, maybe its because we don't actually have the design or plans for this building?

looks fairly accurate to me. i've seen models & other drawings that looked pretty close to that one.

apparently construction begins on the 170m central tower next year

Because many of Gaudi's original works were lost, how much of the newly constructed building is actually adhering to Gaudi's original work or has it simply been improvised?

As I understand it, the Passion Facade deviates greatly from Gaudi's work. As well as much of the newly constructed pillars are made of concrete where as the original were made out of stone.

Looks like the improper transliteration of some language that doesn't use the roman alphabet. Aspects of it do seem somewhat Polish, somewhat eastern Romance (i.e. Moldovian), even some aspects of Gaelic. But some of the words don't even show up in Google, which is why I think it someone's phonetic attempt to communicate a language that doesn't use a roman-based alphabet.

Ever deal with Contractors and project deadlines?

Nuff said...






















I'M KIDDING, I'M KIDDING!!!

Some of the blueprints to the Sagrada Familia were also destroyed during the Spanish Civil War during the 1930's which makes it even harder to finish the building. They have to build the building in some areas by scratch. It is very hard to respect Gaudi's plans when those plans are destroyed.

Even worse are developers that have screwed or is screwing up the building. One is the construction of the apartment buildings at the main entrance in the 1970's. There was supposed to have been an even grander entrance but when they built those buildings there the grand entrance couldn't be built. Now the high speed rail tunnel will run underneath the church which can potentially damage it especially when the trains are going to start running. So blame other people for the slow down of the construction of the church. Now you know the reason why I hate people sometimes.

From what I understand, 140 years is a fairly quick completion time by European cathedral standards. What makes them so powerful is that they are not the singular vision of one man but the collective vision of a society. Hell, Chartres, Notre-Dame, etc were all built pretty much without the aid of plans on paper as we know them.

you mean this place? sure, why not:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...b/bb/Hell2.jpg