4 ms·
This is a pet peeve of mine, and makes me want to scream every time I see some click bait about how much better roman concrete was. If their concrete was so gre
by pitaa 9y ago
This is a pet peeve of mine, and makes me want to scream every time I see some click bait about how much better roman concrete was. If their concrete was so great, where are the ruins of the toman skyscrapers?!? :)
- amelius 9y agoWhy would you need to build skyhigh, if there is still plenty of land available for low-rise building?
- mason55 9y agoWhy would you live in a city when there's plenty of suburban sprawl? There are lots of reasons of efficiency to build up even if you can build out.
- sliken 9y agoRomans had neither elevators or air conditioning. They did build on a fairly large scale though. I believe 150 foot tall structures were not uncommon, and those are the ones still standing.
- themgt 9y agoThat's simply a false dichotomy. Many of the world's great cities still mostly enforce height limits that the Romans could have built to. Because actually living like an ant among 100 story skyscrapers is not what most humans want. A medium density and mixed use city of max ~150 foot high buildings has very few disadvantages and analogizing it to USA suburban sprawl is just laughable nonsense. Have you ever been to e.g. Rome, Paris, Amsterdam, Florence ... most of Western Europe?
- Jaruzel 9y agoAlso, less than 150 years ago, there was one seventh of the population on this planet than there is now. In fact, during the time of the Roman Empire there were only 300 million people on this rock, 45 million or so were within the Empire[1]. Skyscrapers are only a good solution if you have over-population. No-one in their right mind would ever want to live or work in one if they didn't have to. -- [1] http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/killing-jesus/articles/history-of-jesus-era/ http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/killing-jesus/articles... (first Google hit)
- pouetpouet 9y agoAncient Rome grew beyond 1 million inhabitants in the 2d century. Chang'an (Xi'an), China in the 8th century, Bagdad around the 10th century. There were big cities before. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities_throughout_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities_through...
- throwaway91111 9y agoEngineers are expensive! Residential housing would have been wooden and (relatively) temporary.
- fiblye 9y agoI think a big reason ancient towers didn't really exist is less because they couldn't be built, and more that nobody wanted to climb up 5 or 10 floors if they could avoid it. No sane person would go up and down 20 floors if they could avoid it. The colosseum is 150 feet tall, which isn't exactly short. Beyond that point, I think a big problem is getting the resources up high enough to keep building, as well as convincing people to climb that far up.
- sbierwagen 9y agoThe only multistory residential buildings of antiquity I know of is the old city of Sana'a: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sana%27a#Old_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sana%27a#Old_City Five to nine stories tall, made of rammed earth, not even concrete! (Not enough water for concrete in Yemen) Continuously inhabited for ~2500 years. @idlewords went there back in 2014, before the Saudis invaded: http://idlewords.com/2014/07/sana_a.htm http://idlewords.com/2014/07/sana_a.htm
- vacri 9y agoRome had multistorey (3 to 4 of them) residential buildings, and opposite to today, the lower floors were the prestige floors - less climbing, more robust materials. The top floors were generally poorly constructed, out of lightweight materials.
- dankohn1 9y agoIn Manhattan, buildings over 100yo have taller ceilings on the first couple floors (where the retail shops would be and the owners would live), and then low ceilings on the highest floors for the scriveners and production workers. Of course, it's an issue today when lots of software companies want light (i.e., high floor) and high ceilings. People don't realize what a paradigm shifting technology elevators were.
- caf 9y agoThe Secret Life of Machines - The Lift (Elevator): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBLa105TQeg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBLa105TQeg
- whistlerbrk 9y agoplumbing I think is also a major reason as well as why not just spread out. They werent as geographically contained as we are.
- whistlerbrk 9y agoplumbing I think is also a major reason as well as why not just spread out. They werent as geographically contained as we are.
- pjc50 9y agoThey were banned by building codes - insulae were limited to something like five stories due to fires. A problem that is tragically still relevant.
- anentropic 9y agowho wants skyscrapers in absence of elevators?