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Comment by markoman | Hacker News Reader

It was frustrating reading the captions to the photos because for each one it would mention that tax policy affected various features of the building. Except that, over and over, it mysteriously left out the why and how of tax policy affecting roofing or windows being bricked over. That is, why would tax policy cause windows to be bricked over? I just found it exhausting being teased over and over. I don't read to be teased. I read to be educated, yet I wasn't even sure that the read would have answered my questions. I gave up instead.

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The mansard roofs in Paris -- taxes were based on number of floors up to the roof line. Mansard roofs disguise the top floor as part of the roof.

Narrow buildings -- these buildings were taxed based on the number of linear feet facing the canal. In the picture, the door in the middle is the door for a house that is only as wide as that door, "the skinniest house in the world".

Covered / Bricked over windows -- buildings were taxed based on the number of windows. Building owners could save money simply by bricking over some windows.

Quoting from the first photo example:

"In the early 17th century, buildings were taxed by the number of floors leading up to the cornice of the roof.

Architect François Mansart ingeniously responded to this rule by hiding an additional story or two under the roof for additional living space, rendering it exempt from taxation."

...and hence the "distinctive architecture of Paris, with its mansard roofs".

You have to read the article, not just look at the pictures.

Why provide photos to illustrate your point and then not draw the relationship (between building features & tax policy) in the captions. To me, it was gratuitous. I know its a small point, but the subject matter is a bit light anyways. It could have been made more facile.

The paragraphs below explained. People were taxed on windows, so people removed windows to reduce the tax.

We lived in the Edinburgh New Town and the buildings had quite a few bricked up windows - I had assumed as the buildings weren't that old (early 19th century) the Window Tax explanation was unlikely but it turns out it wasn't abolished until 1851:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_tax

>I just found it exhausting being teased over and over.

Umm, RTFA

Paris taxed based in the number of floors up to the roofline. This was described in the article.

The British taxed based on a count of windows.

> I read to be educated

Evidently not...

You didn't think the section "MANSARD ROOFS IN PARIS" would explain the picture of a Paris roof? And you looked at the three short paragraphs in the section and decided that's too much to read, the one sentence caption was exhausting enough.

Um, you didn't read where I was referring to the photo captions. Each of the captions teased the rationale of tax affect and it felt a little gratuitous. Maybe the HN crowd is more tolerant than I, but I bailed. I wanted a little more to go on to know that the read was going to be interesting.

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