3 ms·

Crazy, it was opened in 1977, already closed for a couple of years (1997 to 2000) for maintenance and rebuild, and after 20 more years it requires yet again 5 y

by wazoox 3y ago

Crazy, it was opened in 1977, already closed for a couple of years (1997 to 2000) for maintenance and rebuild, and after 20 more years it requires yet again 5 years of work? That's really a terrible building.

xhkkffbf 3y ago
To be fair, some of this is because of how the French government operates. This in the culture that invented the word "bureaucracy." Many normal, profit-driven businesses could probably maintain such a building without so many silly closures.
- majormajor 3y ago
  Or, more likely IMO, a profit-driven business would abandon it because they couldn't square the expense with that whole "profit-driven" thing.
  - xhkkffbf 3y ago
    You seem to assume that the expense would stay just so high. I'm guessing it could all be done for so much less. For comparison, please see the buildings in the former Soviet Union or Venzeula or Cuba to see how well they're maintained in a workers' paradise.
    - majormajor 3y ago
      I don't assume it would stay 'just' so high, I just accept that some designs are higher maintenance than others. Let's stay focused on market-oriented countries since that was the claim here - that the "market" could magically figure out how to maintain any given building cheaply. I'm pointing out that it's far more likely that the market would just give up. Why optimize the crazy building instead of replacing it with a boring easy one? Since you want to be snarky, though: ever wonder why there is such a thing as "historical preservation" status for certain buildings? It's because we know that not every building makes economic sense, but sometimes we want to keep them around anyway, even though if wholly under the control of a profit-motivated organization they'd be gone and replaced with something in the name of efficiency. There is more to life than monetary efficiency.
      - ttoinou 3y ago
        There is more to life than monetary efficiency. Yes that "more" is stealing more money / contracting more debt from french taxpayers to renovate constantly an ugly building that is promoting a politician (Pompidou was president and prime minister)
- Kon-Peki 3y ago
  There are a lot of parallels to the Thompson Center building in Chicago. It’s more or less Helmut Jahn’s prototype for the Sony Center in Berlin and housed government offices. The government couldn’t keep up with maintenance, let it rot, and finally sold it to Google who are planning to make it into a showcase office building. So we get to see if a profit-driven business can maintain such a building!

by wazoox 3y ago

xhkkffbf 3y ago

To be fair, some of this is because of how the French government operates. This in the culture that invented the word "bureaucracy." Many normal, profit-driven businesses could probably maintain such a building without so many silly closures.

majormajor 3y ago
Or, more likely IMO, a profit-driven business would abandon it because they couldn't square the expense with that whole "profit-driven" thing.
- xhkkffbf 3y ago
  You seem to assume that the expense would stay just so high. I'm guessing it could all be done for so much less. For comparison, please see the buildings in the former Soviet Union or Venzeula or Cuba to see how well they're maintained in a workers' paradise.
  - majormajor 3y ago
    I don't assume it would stay 'just' so high, I just accept that some designs are higher maintenance than others. Let's stay focused on market-oriented countries since that was the claim here - that the "market" could magically figure out how to maintain any given building cheaply. I'm pointing out that it's far more likely that the market would just give up. Why optimize the crazy building instead of replacing it with a boring easy one? Since you want to be snarky, though: ever wonder why there is such a thing as "historical preservation" status for certain buildings? It's because we know that not every building makes economic sense, but sometimes we want to keep them around anyway, even though if wholly under the control of a profit-motivated organization they'd be gone and replaced with something in the name of efficiency. There is more to life than monetary efficiency.
    - ttoinou 3y ago
      There is more to life than monetary efficiency. Yes that "more" is stealing more money / contracting more debt from french taxpayers to renovate constantly an ugly building that is promoting a politician (Pompidou was president and prime minister)
Kon-Peki 3y ago
There are a lot of parallels to the Thompson Center building in Chicago. It’s more or less Helmut Jahn’s prototype for the Sony Center in Berlin and housed government offices. The government couldn’t keep up with maintenance, let it rot, and finally sold it to Google who are planning to make it into a showcase office building. So we get to see if a profit-driven business can maintain such a building!