Why don't modern buildings last?

[Meat Target]

How is it that buildings from antiquity can survive to this day, but buildings from 50 years ago crumble?

Why, for example, has the Roman Colosseum outlived the Houston Astrodome in spite of being forty times it's age?

Was it better craftsmanship? Planned obsolescence? Protection as a historical site (or lack thereof)?

 

[L50LasPak]

Why doesn't modern anything last? Cheap, shitty, overdesigned, too many cooks on the design committee, planning committee & zoning board, and built by the lowest bidder.

Everything built in the present day is designed to be disposable, even the floor underneath your feet.

 

[shameful existence]

It's the materials. Steel, glass, concrete. Though in defense of concrete, in Eastern Europe some people still prefer to live in Plattenbau style buildings (made of concrete slabs) because many of the newer brick buildings are not built as well, so there's a bit of that too.

Also, you can only see the old buildings that did survive the test of time.
Also also, most of what's left of the Colosseum is not original. And yeah, at one point it did become a thing no one wanted to be responsible for destroying, the Allies were careful not to hit it when Rome was bombed in WW2.

 

[TenMilesWide]

Modern buildings have more moving parts and potential points of failure than did the colosseum, including accommodations for electricity, running water, and climate control. They're also generally owned and operated by commercial entities that will happily skimp on good construction and maintenance, and just accept that by the time the building's deteriorated enough to worry about it'll be cheaper to tear it down and build another than to repair the existing faults. It's paid back its expected returns, are you really going to spend millions more to keep it up?

 

[Fascist Frederick]

People used to build things because they wanted to. Now people build things because they want to be paid. Someone doing something for money will never do as good a job as someone doing it for passion.

 

[Ultrapenguin]

People used to build things because they wanted to. Now people build things because they want to be paid. Someone doing something for money will never do as good a job as someone doing it for passion.

I mean, builder is a pretty old profession. Probably almost as old as buildings are.

That said back in the day they were building stuff in and around their community for people in their community fairly often, so there was a reason to take pride in it. That's a major factor people miss when they're judging pay nowadays vs. in the olden days, is that you were not only getting paid, but improving your community and building bonds with other people at the same time. There was a lot more you were getting out of it than just the money.

The degree to which the loss of that has affected society can't be overstated I think.

 

[PipTheAlchemist]

Modern buildings are made out of goycrete

 

[Vecr]

I think one major problem is that they use rebar that can rust. If you don't use rebar or use stainless rebar modern concrete would probably last as long as the Roman stuff. Rusting rebar causes major cracking problems that get worse and worse, especially in places where water seeping into cracks expands due to freezing.

 

[Rome's rightful successor]

Modern building are mostly design to be cheap and replicable.

 

[Caddchef]

Most modern buildings are designed to last 25 - 30 years without major work, literally planned obsolescence.

 

[Tour of Italy]

You’ll note that only half of the Roman Colosseum is still around today.

If you showed a Roman engineer the length of the span of the Astrodome’s canopy they would be in absolute awe. No material they had access to could go that distance.

I will say that from a material standpoint, we are learning that our estimates for the lifespan of reinforced concrete and its resilience against corrosion were a little optimistic, but we only really discovered the extent of it relatively recently. The Colosseum is concrete, but there is no steel inside to corrode, and the Romans were exceptional at their craft. They are very much the outlier of the ancient world.
Aside from that, there is an intentional calculus involved with every building designed; how much do I want to spend, how much do I want it to do, and how long do I want it to last. It is difficult to hold those things in balance.

Stakeholders want a return on their investment while they’re still alive and they don’t like bulldozing their expensive investments before the end of their useful material lifespans. Why would a government or business build a 200 year building when they can’t even foresee what their needs will be in 50? Wouldn’t taxpayers be upset that their new library cost twenty times as much in order to last 500 years when they could have reasonable gotten a practical building for much less?

There are a lot of engineering best practices that when followed can save maintenance costs and extend a building’s safe lifespan for a relatively low additional cost. Yes these details are often ignored to reduce up-front costs and increase short-term gains. But the cost difference between a 50 year structure and a 100 year structure is orders of magnitude less than the difference between a 50 year structure and something like the near two millennia lifespan of the Colosseum.

Overall though, it’s more of a practical matter than a cynical one. It all depends on the purpose of the structure. We build plenty of monuments that will outlive us, and, quite reasonably, build plenty of semi-permanent structures that are much cheaper to demolish and reconfigure than to design to outrageous lifespans in the first place. It’s counterintuitive, but shorter building lifespans can be more efficient. Again, it depends on why you’re building it, and how it will be used.

Mount Rushmore will last millennia. Your college’s sports complex will become worn out and outdated long before the structure itself is compromised.

 

[whatever I feel like]

And on top of all of that, its not like the Astrodome fell over in a storm (though it eventually would have caved in if not taken care of,) it was torn down.

 

[MoffAlbert]

1. Sub par materials to cut costs.
2. Retards on the build job thanks to woke hiring practices.
3. Rushed building to have something open and generating revenue as soon as possible.

 

[Alex Krycek]

1. Sub par materials to cut costs.
3. Rushed building to have something open and generating revenue as soon as possible.

These 2 in particular.

A lot of the buildings you’re thinking of were built by people with immense wealth who could afford the best materials. They did not spare any expense for a lavish palace, an eloquent Cathedral, or sturdy fortress. Nowadays these companies will cut costs on everything to make building as cheap as possible and start generating revenue quickly for a return on investment ASAP. Whether it lasts centuries or not they don’t care.

Also some of these buildings took decades if not centuries to complete. Some of these buildings commissioned were not completed by the time their patron or even their patrons children passed away. Now people want the structure up as soon as possible.

 

[Hoppy]

While I am more than inclined to agree that many old buildings are built to last, there is a degree of survivorship bias in our current observations. We can only see the buildings that have lasted a long time, every other old building that crumbled did exactly that, it crumbled. So obviously, every old building we can see now was necessarily built to last.

 

[Absurdist Laughter]

I'd wager there are multiple factors:
Most historic buildings that still stand weren't heavily trafficked.
Population growth.
New building Tech is as experimental as the Covid 19 Vaccine.

 

[Saint Agustin]

Because some buildings are designed to be demolished and repurpose the terrain later on.

I live in a municipality where construction is always on, someone is always building a 10 story building.... And every year they demolish it to make something else.

Building and demolishing construction is cost and profit, sometimes the same company who build something is the same one who demolish it = profit all the same.

It makes sense to use cheap construction materials, with weakpoints in the structure to more easily and less costly demolishing.

 

[Trump's Chosen]

While I am more than inclined to agree that many old buildings are built to last, there is a degree of survivorship bias in our current observations. We can only see the buildings that have lasted a long time, every other old building that crumbled did exactly that, it crumbled. So obviously, every old building we can see now was necessarily built to last.

And let's add to this the amount of restoration work these buildings have received over the years. The stonehenge was reinforced with concrete. The coliseum got a 30$ million restoration from 2013-2016 and so on. Even the eiffel tower is receiving restoration work.

 

[draggs]

Because nothing lasts unless it is built of stone and is either massive as fuck or in an area without floods or much bad weather in general

 

[Lorne Armstrong]

And on top of all of that, its not like the Astrodome fell over in a storm (though it eventually would have caved in if not taken care of,) it was torn down.

I haven’t been through Houston TX in a long while but you might want to check with someone from down there because I don’t think the Astrodome has been torn down. They may have gutted it and knocked down the entrance ramps to it but last I heard the Astrodome is still standing.