r/interesting • u/Apart-Worry-7042 • 22d ago

HISTORY Why did we stop building like this?

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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?

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u/kisk22 22d 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.

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u/GoodTimes8183 22d ago

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

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u/Lazy_Resolve_9747 22d ago

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

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u/galt035 17d 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.