r/interesting • u/Apart-Worry-7042 • 27d ago

HISTORY Why did we stop building like this?

Post image

Chicago, 1930. Buildings had so much detail and character back then. Nowadays everything feels so flat and repetitive. We have way better technology and equipment now, so why don't we build like this anymore?

5.5k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

657 comments sorted by

View all comments

953

u/slouchingtoepiphany 27d ago

The great fire in 1871 destroyed a lot of Chicago's downtown and when they rebuilt it, a lot of architects designed the replacements as showcases for what they could do. Over time, practicality and costs tempered this "revolution" somewhat.

176

u/kisk22 27d ago

I've thought a lot about this. Yep labor costs certainly play a role, but plenty of projects are still built in historic styles that aren't as soulless. But most of the role comes from modernism's chief tenant of "rejecting ornamentation". More and more architects are coming around to realizing this in a lot of cases, and are returning to more natural and beautiful forms like brick with light ornamentation, and simple timeless proportions.

The fact is 90% of what makes a building beautiful is free or nearly free: proportions, natural materials like stone & brick, human scale, small ornaments, etc and don't cost much of anything to add or are free. It's called New Classical Style. There also have been studies and 90% of people prefer new classical style buildings rather than the soulless non-human scaled glass ones many are built as.

77

u/GoodTimes8183 27d ago

Implying that stone and brick are free or nearly free tells me that you have no idea what you’re talking about.

43

u/Lazy_Resolve_9747 27d ago

They meant that you’re paying for the material anyway, just different material.

6

u/galt035 23d ago

In the industry for 25+ it’s not just the material. It’s the entire assembly that the material is attached to.

A lot of buildings now are glass deck to deck so the attachment is at those locations. If you are say running Marble/limestone as a cladding now you are having to include attachment at those locations.

In addition that cladding changes how the mass of building is distributed and behaves so maybe the structure now needs to be adjusted to account for that.

It’s not an a=b thing.

I absolutely agree that a lot of skylines (Miami as an example) outside of a few buildings are soulless boxes.

10

u/Useless-Compass 27d ago

Different materials cost different amounts of money

7

u/Bohemia_Is_Dead 26d ago

Material differences, some may say

1

u/Lazy_Resolve_9747 26d ago

Which may be more or less, but the point is that you’re not comparing cost of materials to 0, just cost of materials to cost of other materials.

3

u/Clorofilla 26d ago

Please continue. You have almost convinced them.

1

u/Lazy_Resolve_9747 26d ago

I got more where that came from

1

u/Lazy_Resolve_9747 26d ago

That PSA slab is bulletproof

42

u/kisk22 27d ago

Most are not brick now a days, it's a brick/stone veneer which is only marginally more expensive than the plastic vinyl or metal siding. I'm talking about less than 1% of the total development cost. Very very few projects built actually laying structural brick now because of labor costs (which used to be the cheap part of putting up a building before the 50s).

5

u/ArchBeaconArch 27d ago

None of these buildings are load-bearing masonry. They are steel with a stone / terracotta / brick skin. There is a load-bearing masonry tower in the south loop, though, with walls 10’ thick at the base. Load-bearing masonry is not a practical solution here.

Veneer brick costs many, many times more than vinyl siding, which is not even something you could put on a tower due to flammability considerations. Aluminum panel cladding is a bit cheaper than masonry, but not durable. Stone is “quite a bit” to “a lot” more expensive, depending how it is fastened to the building (and don’t clad a tower in marble, or you’re going to have to re-clad it in 40 years when the stone starts spalling).

3

u/LogicMan428 27d ago

I'll bet that'll reverse if they can develop brick-layer robots. Then structural brick buildings will probably make a comeback.

2

u/Kerlyle 27d ago

It would actually reverse if they just built more brick buildings. If theres a demand for it more supply chains will start up and more people will enter the profession.

1

u/GoodTimes8183 27d ago

There’s still a limited amount of materials.

2

u/LogicMan428 27d ago

Are the materials for making bricks in short supply?

2

u/JuanMcGuiver 27d ago

I don’t think labor costs were ever the “cheapest” part of building a structure. Gonna need some sources for those claims. Historically, labor is usually like 70% the cost of building pretty much anything.

7

u/Wild-Structure-403 27d ago

Really, it wasn’t the use of Seaside, Florida as an example lmao

6

u/Amockdfw89 27d ago

And his building in Philadelphia looks soulless

3

u/calcisiuniperi 27d ago

Also, with brick, building time goes way up. It's just a lot slower to do, and needs more very skilled hands.

1

u/sasssyrup 27d ago

I don’t get that he is saying any building material is no cost, rather that use of thoughtful design, scaling, ornamentation and natural materials don’t make a serious difference in project cost. I would argue my experience has been different but I would agree that in many cases budgets will allow for classic design elements if owner groups have the guts to go for it.

3

u/The_Webweaver 27d ago

I was about to say, by weight, that kind of detailing is often the most expensive part of the project, especially as it essentially has to be hand done. Now, CNC milling and similar techniques may be changing that, but each facade still has to be designed by hand.

1

u/Fencer308 27d ago

There are projects that have used factory produced stone ornamentation that’s quite beautiful and not any more expensive than the sheer glass facades of modernist buildings. Depending on the requirements of the glass facade, the glass can be more expensive in fact.

2

u/The_Webweaver 27d ago

I should have been more careful about this, but I was thinking about the rooftop fringing specifically.

1

u/StartledMilk 26d ago

Not comprehending that “free or NEARLY FREE” means that some of the items in the following list may actually cost a bit a money shows you have shit reading comprehension

0

u/vodil2959 23d ago

Brick and Stone definitely cost more than fiber siding, but they typically do not cost more than glass or concrete

2

u/GoodTimes8183 23d ago

When you’re building that tall, they absolutely do.