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There's also survivorship bias here. Perhaps there were a lot of poorly made 9th century buildings and barns that didn't survive.
by Houshalter 9y ago
There's also survivorship bias here. Perhaps there were a lot of poorly made 9th century buildings and barns that didn't survive.
- beat 9y agoNo, this is a little different. It's not "poorly made", it's that the technologies didn't even exist. Without nails, there wasn't a market for the other materials of the balloon-frame construction world. I live in a neighborhood of century-old houses (my own house is either 104, 106, or 110 years old - it's unclear from the paperwork). Many of the houses in this neighborhood are in rapid decay, mostly due to inadequate foundations or inadequate maintenance. We're seeing a building boom, with developers buying up battered rentals, tearing them down, and building something new on the lot - trying to look old, but with modern construction and materials. I wonder how the new houses will hold up in another century, relative to the sturdier of the now-old houses?
- freehunter 9y agoThere are an absolute ton of poorly made 9th century buildings that did not survive, which is why it makes news when one is found and ones that exist are tourist attractions.
- gumby 9y agoThis is my theory about the amazing Victorian era bridges built before there was good theoretical understanding of how to build steel structures. All the crummy ones fell down. Timber framed buildings that have survived are a different story, but again that's because they are the result of thousands of years of learning how to get it right.