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Why has the quality of brick buildings declined in the last 100 years?
41–50 of 282 posts
Re: Why has the quality of brick buildings declined in the last 100 years?
#42The small house I live in is 100 years old, and built of brick. It is a tremendously (over-)engineered building: two layers of brick even for interior walls , exterior walls are around 1 ft thick, and four massive chimney-breasts (although two were sadly removed by previous owners). My theory is that they just had enormous amounts of cheap labour 100 years ago, and you'd never be able to build such a building today b…
In my experience the timber in buildings that old is of the sort that would be hard to find at any price these days, and ruinously expensive if you could. Single thick, long, flawless pieces used in places where several thinner, knot-filled pieces would be used today.
Exceptional (by modern standards) material, used in quantities that would be considered excessive even in nice construction these days.
Re: Why has the quality of brick buildings declined in the last 100 years?
#43Is there any reason to believe that the "old" building wasn't just recently repointed? This seems like the most likely answer.
No amount of repointing could make the modern joints as even, or as narrow, as the old ones. Though to be fair I don't think the modern builders were even going for that look.
Modern builders rarely go for the tightly fitted brick look. It's possible to get brick and concrete pavers with precise dimensions and cement them tightly together, and this is common for brick and stone paving work. Walls could be made that way, but seldom are.
Re: Why has the quality of brick buildings declined in the last 100 years?
#44It's an interesting idea worth exploring...
...but comparing a bank (a building that in 1891 had to LOOK expensive) and student flats (a building that has to BE cheap) results in the rather underwhelming discovery that because they had wildly different budgets with completely different aesthetic aims, they ended up with different built qualities. Shocking, isn't it?
If they want to make an apples-for-apples comparison, the author should come to the UK and compare our 1890 semi-detached with any post-70s new-build. There are certainly ecological issues with the older building (that are expensive to retrofit past) but the quality of building and workmanship is drastically better in the older houses.
And [at least in the UK] this isn't a case of crappy houses made of sticks falling down. With the rarest of exceptions, there is no "survivorship bias".
Re: Why has the quality of brick buildings declined in the last 100 years?
#45Where are brick buildings being torn down left and right? I challenge the survivorship bias argument as where I live in the US east coast multiple cities push for historical status on buildings past a certain age in order to retain character.
My 1950 brick building is 1/3 constructed from re-used brick. Many houses built in the 1960s in my area are also built of reused brick. There must have been some degree of brick teardown going on.
Even now we have trouble with people stealing brick buildings. Unused houses are sometimes set ablaze by brick thieves, then later they come in the night and cart off the bricks.
Re: Why has the quality of brick buildings declined in the last 100 years?
#46The author admits to the limited comparison. I have a few other reasons: 1. We actually care if our buildings are insulated now and withstand earthquakes. 2. People are so wealthy here they don't have to get it right, they can always pay to do it over again. They don't care to put in the research to make sure it is done right. [0] 3. Corollary to #2, we don't need our buildings to last 100 years because we expect the…
4. The 19th century buildings which were shoddily built (the majority) have been torn down. It's the same bias that makes people claim old appliances were built better than modern ones. The article's author is not wrong. The average 1980's brickwork building is built less well than the average 100 year old building. However, 100 years ago buildings probably were built worse on average than today. Both of those statem…
People used to be able to repair old appliances. Now, they basically last two years(durable good), and we throw it out. I'll take repairability, over modern, in appliances, and even automobiles. I used to be able to fix my appliances; I just throw them away now. I wonder what the net cost is to the enviornment? I currently have a dryer that never stops beeping. A washer that never really cleaned clothes, but only uses a small amount of water? A three year old dishwasher that needs a expensive computer board, and a pump. Parts that are more expensive than a new machine.
Re: Why has the quality of brick buildings declined in the last 100 years?
#47Is the brick actually holding up the building? In many modern buildings, it's just a veneer, about 1cm thick. The steelwork holds it up. The new Box.net HQ in Redwood City looks like a brick building, but it's not; it's steel and concrete with about 1cm of brick on the outside. There's some nice work being done with brick today.[1] Some of this is gentrification, built to fit in with existing brick buildings, or to i…
I think even some old (100 year old) buildings w/ "full sized" bricks (not 1cm veneer) are still wood-frame construction w/ brick non-structural outerwork. See http://www.carsondunlop.com/resources/articles/brick-houses-...
Definitely. That's still done today as well. Lots of homes are wood frame with full-thickness brick veneer.
Re: Why has the quality of brick buildings declined in the last 100 years?
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually that confirms the point; the old building was clearly state of the art for the time, and the new building is a cheap rush like student dorms sometimes are.
No, there are many buildings in London surviving that were built simply to get the money when they were demolished to build railways but it never happened, and they are still standing. 19th century buildings were mass produced, not always very well.
Examples? Presumably you're not claiming the Citizens Bank building from TFA is such a building, and mass-produced 19th century buildings might look quite different from it.
Re: Why has the quality of brick buildings declined in the last 100 years?
#49I saw this brickwork on a building in nyc's financial district on a building maybe around 50-100 years old.
https://plus.google.com/111337360985340071974/posts/KkDyX34u...
Re: Why has the quality of brick buildings declined in the last 100 years?
#50Reminds me on a recent conversation at a maker space:
How do you control it, a transistor and a oscillator?
Nah, just an Arduino.