I recently had the opportunity to visit Cologne, Germany for the Game Developers Conference and Gamescom conventions. When I arrived in Cologne, I was greeted by an amazing, towering cathedral larger than any historical building that I’ve ever seen.
Look at the photo above (I didn’t take this btw, I swiped it off Wikipedia as I didn’t bring a camera with me). Check out how small the people are in relation to the cathedral. That’s just insane.
The story goes that the Dom commenced construction in 1248 and stopped in 1473, then commenced again in 1842 and was completed in 1880. The structure is beautiful, made of solid stone and carved to perfection. There is so much detail as you walk up to the walls to check out the intricacies of its exterior.
As I walked into the interior, I couldn’t believe it. It looked like a matte painting from a movie. This was not something that I was expecting to see in real life.
The Dom was built in an era where they had no computers and no power machinery. Granted, they probably had lot’s of slaves or peasants who worked their entire lives on the Dom without much to survive on. But my point is that they somehow managed to build this structure without all the technological wizardry that we have today.
Today, our construction methods involve using a lot of CAD, BIM and software to design and visualize the construction project before it gets built. Dom had none of that. In fact, I learned from a colleague that the Dom is technically not supposed to be standing. Apparently, if you put the Dom into a software simulation, it should actually fall down!
Construction-wise, the Dom is literally rock solid. I’m just amazed at how much stone they moved, cut and put into place! This was all done by hand with no powertools, heavy machinery and powercranes to haul up the materials.
I can’t help but make comparisons. Here is a structure that was built hundreds of years ago, without the aid of technology. Not only is it more beautiful than most of the concrete monstrosities that we create today, it’s still standing strong and not falling down any time soon! Compare that with the structures in Montreal which are all crumbling to pieces after only a few years!
