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York Minster in England is mostly 1000 years old. There are some nice stories about how it handled a serious fire in 1984 here, (starting about 18 minutes in) h
by abainbridge 5y ago
York Minster in England is mostly 1000 years old. There are some nice stories about how it handled a serious fire in 1984 here, (starting about 18 minutes in) https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0007pws https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0007pws. eg, the 2000 year old Roman drainage system got used for the first time in 1000 years because lots of water got inside the building from the fire hoses.
When rebuilding it, they had to decide whether to remake it in the same way it was originally, or to use a modern approach. They decided to use oak beams again because of lack of evidence about what happens to steel structures after hundreds of years. But then they couldn't find any oak trees big enough.
- fmajid 5y agoWhen planning to rebuild Notre Dame de Paris, there was a proposal to use titanium beams instead of the flammable oak ones that caused the deflagration in the same place, but they opted to go the original route, which involved finding old oak trees across France to harvest.
- a9h74j 5y agoThere is a story about one of the Ivy League universities. IIRC, in one of the century-or-two old buildings, there was a need to replace some main interior beams in a roof. Among the staff, someone knew someone who remembered something about this. Turns out, there was a special grove of trees, still under control of the university, which had been planted to provide replacement beams -- after 150 years of growth. An old story about people having thought for the long term.