7 ms·

Kind of depressing that most of the US will never have something as cool as this due to this countries lack of appreciation for dated architecture.

JacobAldridge 16y ago
That, and the fact that the last war to be fought on US soil pre-dates the invention of film. (US Civil War ended in 1865; film was invented by George Eastman in 1884) Lamenting the lack of architectural appreciation remains worthwhile.
- eru 16y ago
  There was enough inner-city decay and gentrification going on in the US, to make a comparison interesting even without a war.
- palish 16y ago
  Lamenting the lack of architectural appreciation remains worthwhile. Why? Humans conform nature to our needs. If we need a better building, why shouldn't we tear down an old one? All of the previous building's history will remain documented in, say, Wikipedia. This is probably just the worldview of an inexperienced kid though. (This is an honest question, not a statement of opinion.)
  - projectileboy 16y ago
    I agree, but what's considered valuable and what isn't is just fashion more often than not. And once the building is torn down, it's too late to reconsider.
    - palish 16y ago
      That's a good point. I'm just wondering why an old building should be preserved at all. (Honestly, why?)
      - arethuza 16y ago
        For me old and ancient buildings provide the soul of our cities - providing a tangible connection with the many generations of our ancestors. Of course, it helps that I live in a beautiful and old city (though hardly ancient compared to some) - as I write this I can look up at a castle perched on the plug of an extinct volcano, parts nearly a thousand years old, and think that this is really rather a nice place to live and work. I suggest you walk the streets of Rome or Istanbul, sit in the center of an Egyptian pyramid or wonder at the stone houses of Skara Brae and then consider what the value of "old buildings" are.
        palish 16y ago
        That's really cool. A city with a castle on a volcano? Which city is that?
        kenver 16y ago
        I think it's Edinburgh, it's built on an extinct volcano though. It's probably a health and safety requirement.
        arethuza 16y ago
        Correct: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh_Castle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh_Castle There are a few good reasons that the science of geology was pretty much started here :-)
  - brc 16y ago
    Everything in the world has a U-shaped value curve. Most valuable when it is new, at some point it loses value, may even become worthless. Down the track, it will become priceless and irreplaceable. Note 'value' here isn't strictly monetary, it can be cultural as well. Dropping buildings in the midst of the U never gives things the chance to recover and move past fashion. Most buildings discarded are due to the design being old and out of date. But old buildings in a city plant the cities history in time and allow it to tell a story. Remember that 'Gothic' cathedrals were so named because the term was in regular use as a description of something vulgar. The Notre Dame in Paris was at one stage due for demolition until the story of Quasimodo re-inspired the public to keep it - the restoration is still ongoing. Buildings can be re-purposed and still keep their charm. The mistake is in discarding things just because they are old. It's very true that not all old things are worth keeping, but the benefit of the doubt must go to the building until the current fashion has moved into the past. Also, in the case of Berlin, a lot of damaged structures have been reinforced and kept standing as they were at the end of the war. It reminds the city of what can happen if continual efforts towards peace are not made. These scars on the landscape are a constant reminder of the cities turbulent past, and help develop a sense of the story of the city while walking around. Buildings are the ultimate encapsulator of society - it's where we live, die, make decisions and create history. As such they have a special importance in being kept to tell that story to newcomers.
    - nostrademons 16y ago
      Much of the Northeast has this flavor. I dunno if you've ever been to the Boston area, but many of the buildings have this same sense of history to them. In the leather district, you've got former tanning factories which became porn studios which became software offices and yuppie lofts. In Maynard, you have old textile mills from the industrial revolution, which became DEC in the 50s and 60s, which became Monster.com in the dot-com boom of the 90s, which are now used for web2.0 startups and consultancies. In Lowell, you still see the old textile mills and canals alongside the remnants of the Wang Labs towers and newer businesses. From what I know of NYC, it's much the same, with bohemian lofts where old tenements once stood. That's one of the things I miss most about New England, having moved out to California. Here, everything is cookie-cutter suburbia, built in a hurry during the 70s and 80s. There's none of the charm or history of the Boston area. I can walk around downtown Lowell and say "This is a charming city, even if it's a little economically depressed." I can't really say the same about San Jose, even though it's cleaner, safer, and much more well-off.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    The one thing I always hear Americans say when they visit this side of the Atlantic is that there 'is so much history here'. And with space at a premium in a large part of the cities here the urge to tear down and rebuild is just as large or larger than it is in the US. But I think that it goes deeper than that. Some of the buildings are so old that they should have fallen down long ago, it's just that there is always somebody that thinks that to repair it is the better course than to throw it down. Having a lot of historical buildings around you and near you sets the stage and it would feel unnatural to remove one of them and replace it with some modern house. When an old farmhouse burns down it usually gets rebuilt. A big part of this is that all over europe there are heritage commissions that have a keen eye for what is and what is not of historical value and a relatively large amount of money is pumped in to maintaining those buildings that are deemed valuable. It isn't rare at all to see a 16th century building where I live (nl) and I know a couple (churches, mostly) that are older than 800 years. For me the main reason not to tear it down is that destruction is easy, creation is not. By respecting that which was created by those that came before you get a deeper appreciation for you place in the world. Rather than document what the Sistine Chapel looks like and tearing it down (extreme example, ok), we have the original to look at, which gives a completely different sense of perspective on history. There is a reason why millions of tourists flock here to see these things with their own eyes, an image of a thing is not a replacement for the thing. That goes for buildings, but it also goes for other works of art.
  - ahoyhere 16y ago
    Come stay in Europe for a while. You'll see what we (Americans) are missing. I, for one, love living in a >100-year-old apartment house with 3 ft thick walls and antique wavy glass windows. On Sunday, we took a little trip to the countryside and roamed around a big castle built in 1100.
- whyenot 16y ago
  Early photography used metal or glass plates, not film, and most certainly existed during the civil war. Here is an exhibition on civil war photography from the Met: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/phcw/hd_phcw.htm http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/phcw/hd_phcw.htm
  - JacobAldridge 16y ago
    True - I aimed for brevity instead of clarity with my point. I mentioned film for its ease of use in a variety of situations, meaning its invention made it much more likely that photos would be taken and maintined - as you point out, earlier technology has survived.
- callmeed 16y ago
  The LOC has quite the collection of civil war photographs: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cwphtml/ http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cwphtml/
- davidw 16y ago
  A tiny bit of WWII was fought on US soil: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleutian_Islands_Campaign http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleutian_Islands_Campaign You're correct though, for all intents and purposes.
sliverstorm 16y ago
The buildings that tend to stick around the most seem to be made of rocks. The US doesn't build many buildings with rocks. (for the purposes of this statement, concrete is not a rock)
- Semiapies 16y ago
  Except for the stone buildings that are still around. You have to look for them, though.
- Retric 16y ago
  I grew up in the USA in a house that is older than the United States. But you need to consider how small the population and its overall wealth back then. Building a stone house will last a lot longer but we had plenty of forests back so wood was far less expensive for poor people than it was in Europe. Now days you don’t see a lot of stone buildings being built in Europe because wood has become cheap there as well. PS: Also, the US population was around 1/4 th of Frances population 200 years ago and that ratio get's more extreme the further back you go.
Vivtek 16y ago
My house, in 1905 and last year: http://big-old-house.blogspot.com/2009/09/then-1905-and-now-2009.html http://big-old-house.blogspot.com/2009/09/then-1905-and-now-...
- jacquesm 16y ago
  That's so cool! My house is also from 1905: http://pics.ww.com/v/jacques/buildings/neatspot/07042007224.jpg.html http://pics.ww.com/v/jacques/buildings/neatspot/07042007224.... It's a tiny little farmhouse, I spent 2 years rebuilding it.
  - Vivtek 16y ago
    What a pretty little house! Mine was actually built in 1885 according to the insurance company records of the day (back then, the insurance companies had an actual map of every house in a major town of Indiana, just in case somebody signed up for their insurance - and now it's all on microfiche at the library). The 1905 picture was the earliest I've found so far; it would have been interesting to see one from anything before 1901, when the front porch was built. I love the house; it's built to last and even has a brick outhouse (which was in fact built like a brick outhouse). The neighborhood, not so much. Richmond's fortunes have fallen since the 1800's.
    - jacquesm 16y ago
      Very interesting to be able to pull that much historic information up from the records. I've traced some of the older occupants of the house that I live in (one guy in his late 80's!) and invited them over, it was quite the experience to hear them tell their stories. World War II started for the Netherlands about 500 meters from where my house is (it's right on the German border, the Northernmost crossing). If those old walls could tell stories...
Hoff 16y ago
Without intending to make any comparisons with other events and locations, nor to imply any "coolness" might be involved with the death and destruction, some of the US events that could serve as fodder for photographic and historical retrospectives from the US and territories from the 20th century onward include: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_bombing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_bombing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Police_Strike http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Police_Strike http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_balloon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_balloon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attacks_on_North_America_during_World_War_II http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attacks_on_North_America_during... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Guam_(1944) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Guam_(1944) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Arizona_Memorial http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Arizona_Memorial http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Pastorius http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Pastorius (unsuccessful) http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Midway http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Midway http://arcweb.sos.state.or.us/exhibits/ww2/threat/bombs.htm http://arcweb.sos.state.or.us/exhibits/ww2/threat/bombs.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Happy_Time http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Happy_Time http://lebanon.usembassy.gov/ http://lebanon.usembassy.gov/ There are other examples.
Retric 16y ago
I grew up in the USA in a house that is older than the United States. But you need to consider how small the population and it's overall wealth back then. Building a stone house will last a lot longer but we had plenty of forests back so wood was far less expensive for poor people than it was in Europe. PS: Also the US population was less than 1/7 th of Europe’s 200 years ago.

JacobAldridge 16y ago

That, and the fact that the last war to be fought on US soil pre-dates the invention of film. (US Civil War ended in 1865; film was invented by George Eastman in 1884) Lamenting the lack of architectural appreciation remains worthwhile.

eru 16y ago
There was enough inner-city decay and gentrification going on in the US, to make a comparison interesting even without a war.
palish 16y ago
Lamenting the lack of architectural appreciation remains worthwhile. Why? Humans conform nature to our needs. If we need a better building, why shouldn't we tear down an old one? All of the previous building's history will remain documented in, say, Wikipedia. This is probably just the worldview of an inexperienced kid though. (This is an honest question, not a statement of opinion.)
- projectileboy 16y ago
  I agree, but what's considered valuable and what isn't is just fashion more often than not. And once the building is torn down, it's too late to reconsider.
  - palish 16y ago
    That's a good point. I'm just wondering why an old building should be preserved at all. (Honestly, why?)
    - arethuza 16y ago
      For me old and ancient buildings provide the soul of our cities - providing a tangible connection with the many generations of our ancestors. Of course, it helps that I live in a beautiful and old city (though hardly ancient compared to some) - as I write this I can look up at a castle perched on the plug of an extinct volcano, parts nearly a thousand years old, and think that this is really rather a nice place to live and work. I suggest you walk the streets of Rome or Istanbul, sit in the center of an Egyptian pyramid or wonder at the stone houses of Skara Brae and then consider what the value of "old buildings" are.
      - palish 16y ago
        That's really cool. A city with a castle on a volcano? Which city is that?
        kenver 16y ago
        I think it's Edinburgh, it's built on an extinct volcano though. It's probably a health and safety requirement.
        arethuza 16y ago
        Correct: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh_Castle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh_Castle There are a few good reasons that the science of geology was pretty much started here :-)
- brc 16y ago
  Everything in the world has a U-shaped value curve. Most valuable when it is new, at some point it loses value, may even become worthless. Down the track, it will become priceless and irreplaceable. Note 'value' here isn't strictly monetary, it can be cultural as well. Dropping buildings in the midst of the U never gives things the chance to recover and move past fashion. Most buildings discarded are due to the design being old and out of date. But old buildings in a city plant the cities history in time and allow it to tell a story. Remember that 'Gothic' cathedrals were so named because the term was in regular use as a description of something vulgar. The Notre Dame in Paris was at one stage due for demolition until the story of Quasimodo re-inspired the public to keep it - the restoration is still ongoing. Buildings can be re-purposed and still keep their charm. The mistake is in discarding things just because they are old. It's very true that not all old things are worth keeping, but the benefit of the doubt must go to the building until the current fashion has moved into the past. Also, in the case of Berlin, a lot of damaged structures have been reinforced and kept standing as they were at the end of the war. It reminds the city of what can happen if continual efforts towards peace are not made. These scars on the landscape are a constant reminder of the cities turbulent past, and help develop a sense of the story of the city while walking around. Buildings are the ultimate encapsulator of society - it's where we live, die, make decisions and create history. As such they have a special importance in being kept to tell that story to newcomers.
  - nostrademons 16y ago
    Much of the Northeast has this flavor. I dunno if you've ever been to the Boston area, but many of the buildings have this same sense of history to them. In the leather district, you've got former tanning factories which became porn studios which became software offices and yuppie lofts. In Maynard, you have old textile mills from the industrial revolution, which became DEC in the 50s and 60s, which became Monster.com in the dot-com boom of the 90s, which are now used for web2.0 startups and consultancies. In Lowell, you still see the old textile mills and canals alongside the remnants of the Wang Labs towers and newer businesses. From what I know of NYC, it's much the same, with bohemian lofts where old tenements once stood. That's one of the things I miss most about New England, having moved out to California. Here, everything is cookie-cutter suburbia, built in a hurry during the 70s and 80s. There's none of the charm or history of the Boston area. I can walk around downtown Lowell and say "This is a charming city, even if it's a little economically depressed." I can't really say the same about San Jose, even though it's cleaner, safer, and much more well-off.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  The one thing I always hear Americans say when they visit this side of the Atlantic is that there 'is so much history here'. And with space at a premium in a large part of the cities here the urge to tear down and rebuild is just as large or larger than it is in the US. But I think that it goes deeper than that. Some of the buildings are so old that they should have fallen down long ago, it's just that there is always somebody that thinks that to repair it is the better course than to throw it down. Having a lot of historical buildings around you and near you sets the stage and it would feel unnatural to remove one of them and replace it with some modern house. When an old farmhouse burns down it usually gets rebuilt. A big part of this is that all over europe there are heritage commissions that have a keen eye for what is and what is not of historical value and a relatively large amount of money is pumped in to maintaining those buildings that are deemed valuable. It isn't rare at all to see a 16th century building where I live (nl) and I know a couple (churches, mostly) that are older than 800 years. For me the main reason not to tear it down is that destruction is easy, creation is not. By respecting that which was created by those that came before you get a deeper appreciation for you place in the world. Rather than document what the Sistine Chapel looks like and tearing it down (extreme example, ok), we have the original to look at, which gives a completely different sense of perspective on history. There is a reason why millions of tourists flock here to see these things with their own eyes, an image of a thing is not a replacement for the thing. That goes for buildings, but it also goes for other works of art.
- ahoyhere 16y ago
  Come stay in Europe for a while. You'll see what we (Americans) are missing. I, for one, love living in a >100-year-old apartment house with 3 ft thick walls and antique wavy glass windows. On Sunday, we took a little trip to the countryside and roamed around a big castle built in 1100.
whyenot 16y ago
Early photography used metal or glass plates, not film, and most certainly existed during the civil war. Here is an exhibition on civil war photography from the Met: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/phcw/hd_phcw.htm http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/phcw/hd_phcw.htm
- JacobAldridge 16y ago
  True - I aimed for brevity instead of clarity with my point. I mentioned film for its ease of use in a variety of situations, meaning its invention made it much more likely that photos would be taken and maintined - as you point out, earlier technology has survived.
callmeed 16y ago
The LOC has quite the collection of civil war photographs: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cwphtml/ http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cwphtml/
davidw 16y ago
A tiny bit of WWII was fought on US soil: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleutian_Islands_Campaign http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleutian_Islands_Campaign You're correct though, for all intents and purposes.

sliverstorm 16y ago

The buildings that tend to stick around the most seem to be made of rocks. The US doesn't build many buildings with rocks. (for the purposes of this statement, concrete is not a rock)

Semiapies 16y ago
Except for the stone buildings that are still around. You have to look for them, though.
Retric 16y ago
I grew up in the USA in a house that is older than the United States. But you need to consider how small the population and its overall wealth back then. Building a stone house will last a lot longer but we had plenty of forests back so wood was far less expensive for poor people than it was in Europe. Now days you don’t see a lot of stone buildings being built in Europe because wood has become cheap there as well. PS: Also, the US population was around 1/4 th of Frances population 200 years ago and that ratio get's more extreme the further back you go.

Vivtek 16y ago

My house, in 1905 and last year: http://big-old-house.blogspot.com/2009/09/then-1905-and-now-2009.html http://big-old-house.blogspot.com/2009/09/then-1905-and-now-...

jacquesm 16y ago
That's so cool! My house is also from 1905: http://pics.ww.com/v/jacques/buildings/neatspot/07042007224.jpg.html http://pics.ww.com/v/jacques/buildings/neatspot/07042007224.... It's a tiny little farmhouse, I spent 2 years rebuilding it.
- Vivtek 16y ago
  What a pretty little house! Mine was actually built in 1885 according to the insurance company records of the day (back then, the insurance companies had an actual map of every house in a major town of Indiana, just in case somebody signed up for their insurance - and now it's all on microfiche at the library). The 1905 picture was the earliest I've found so far; it would have been interesting to see one from anything before 1901, when the front porch was built. I love the house; it's built to last and even has a brick outhouse (which was in fact built like a brick outhouse). The neighborhood, not so much. Richmond's fortunes have fallen since the 1800's.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    Very interesting to be able to pull that much historic information up from the records. I've traced some of the older occupants of the house that I live in (one guy in his late 80's!) and invited them over, it was quite the experience to hear them tell their stories. World War II started for the Netherlands about 500 meters from where my house is (it's right on the German border, the Northernmost crossing). If those old walls could tell stories...

Hoff 16y ago

Without intending to make any comparisons with other events and locations, nor to imply any "coolness" might be involved with the death and destruction, some of the US events that could serve as fodder for photographic and historical retrospectives from the US and territories from the 20th century onward include: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_bombing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_bombing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Police_Strike http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Police_Strike http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_balloon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_balloon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attacks_on_North_America_during_World_War_II http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attacks_on_North_America_during... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Guam_(1944) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Guam_(1944) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Arizona_Memorial http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Arizona_Memorial http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Pastorius http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Pastorius (unsuccessful) http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Midway http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Midway http://arcweb.sos.state.or.us/exhibits/ww2/threat/bombs.htm http://arcweb.sos.state.or.us/exhibits/ww2/threat/bombs.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Happy_Time http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Happy_Time http://lebanon.usembassy.gov/ http://lebanon.usembassy.gov/ There are other examples.

Retric 16y ago

I grew up in the USA in a house that is older than the United States. But you need to consider how small the population and it's overall wealth back then. Building a stone house will last a lot longer but we had plenty of forests back so wood was far less expensive for poor people than it was in Europe. PS: Also the US population was less than 1/7 th of Europe’s 200 years ago.