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The Palace of Westminster rebuild took 30 years, but that was a pretty exceptional case. Balmoral Castle took 3 years. I don't know how long more modest housing took on those days but I'm assuming in the realm of a year. Even a few years to build a larger building seems acceptable if you get something reusable for much longer, and more timeless. Anyway, I think it's interesting to compare.

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You'd think we ought to at least be able to build some monumental architecture some of the time, even if cost is prohibitive for ordinary buildings as the argument goes. It's simply impossible to my mind that we command more energy than our ancestors could dream of and yet it's somehow "too expensive" to ever achieve the kind of works they did by hand. There are obviously factors at play which have nothing to do with cost.

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