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How Long Did It Take to Build Cologne Cathedral?
Short answer: about 632 years, from 1248 to 1880.
Master Gerhard is said to have bet the devil he would finish the cathedral before the devil could pipe water from Trier. He lost.
What the sources say about the building period
Foundation stone 1248; construction interrupted in the 16th century (sources differ on the year); resumed 1842; completed 1880. NRW Tourism Secondary source
Stone and crew in numbers
- Country and type
- Germany, cathedral
- Stone in the walls
- 130,000 to 250,000 m³ Estimate
- For comparison
- about 76 Olympic pools of stone, or 19,000 truckloads
- Average crew
- about 36 workers (model value: the crew that would need exactly this long, working without a break)
Volume basis: 7,914 m² footprint; vault 43 m; towers 157 m. Checked against measurements. Our estimates come from published dimensions and are shown as a range. The result is a simple model, not a measured fact.
Where the stone came from
The medieval part is built of Drachenfels trachyte from the Siebengebirge quarries near the Rhine. Builders of the 19th century used sandstone. Graue et al. 2011, Environmental Earth Sciences Academic source
Plan
Legend: tradition, not evidence
Master Gerhard bet the devil that he would finish the cathedral before the devil could build a water pipe from Trier. Gerhard lost.
What we know: Gerhard von Ryle was the first named master builder. He died after a fall from the scaffolding, under circumstances that remain unclear.
Planet Wissen: Meister Gerhard, Structurae: Kölner Dom Tradition, not evidence
Build it yourself
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