On one side of the debate, you have people who claim that craftsmanship is dead and we don’t build houses like we used to. On the other side, you have people who point out that old homes suffer from survivorship bias and we’re able to build much better homes than before.
Now, I don’t have an opinion on either side of the debate. But while I can tell the difference between an obviously quality home from 100 years ago vs a cheap, flimsy house, I don’t really know what that means in modern terms.
Obviously, the multi-million dollar mansions that get featured in Architectural Digest are built to exacting standards but I’m more interested in what the modern equivalent of the 1920s Craftsmans would be. That is, affordable housing for the middle class that’s still built to last.
What are some modern day examples and what, specifically, separates them from a tacky McMansion.
Last I heard, there were kits for real log houses. As long as no termites or dry rot set in, one log on top of another is hard to beat.
And there is nothing about ticky-tacky houses (name that song!) that precludes 100 years - the original ticky-tacky houses in Daly City CA are still standing after 60 years.
Yes one can live in a home 500 years old. Europe has many of them. My inlaws stayed for a month in France in a home that used to be an old winepress/mill complete with the old water wheel.
But the thing is your basically talking about the 500 year old stone. Over the years alot has been added, removed and changed. The biggest being to add electricity, modern heating and cooling, and plumbing. So how much of an old building is still “old”?
And you dont know. Maybe 30 years ago the stones were taken apart, numbered, set aside, and the whole building was rebuilt stone by stone with some modifications. Is it then still an original old building?
I know some homes here in the US which have used recycled timbers and beams from 100 plus year barns and homes in their construction. Does that make them new or old?
All houses want to be eaten and to melt into the soil from whence they came. As long as there are humans who will work tirelessly to keep them from being their natural selves, they will stay up, if they are not completely destroyed by a disaster of some sort.