When was the building being visited constructed? [br] [originaltext] Many of

Many of the buildings in this neighborhood were built a long time ago, but this one we’re about to enter is not quite as old as it looks. It is actually quite a bit younger than most of the other buildings around it. Despite the fact that it was constructed at the turn of the century, the architects who designed it were influenced by European craftsmen of the fifteenth century. Although the blocks appear to be hand chiseled, they were in fact cut that way by a machine. However, this practice of mechanical cutting was discontinued some time before the building was completed in 1904, because workmen charged so much to produce the hand-hewn effect that it became very expensive. The blocks were fastened similarly to a technique that the Romans developed. The technique involved cutting every block into a unique geometrical form which anchored into the previous block. Since every block had to be hand carved, the process was extremely time-consuming. Some might ask why the architects who live in the modern world would seek to copy a kind of architecture from such a long time in the past. Maybe they felt that the five-hundred-year-old buildings were so perfectly refined that there was no other way they could improve upon their beauty. If you look at the building now, it is easy to agree with them.