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Comment by emarthinsen | Hacker News Reader

This is great. We need to keep these building techniques alive - or, at least, documented. There is always going to be a need for restoration reasons, but I'd like to see some of the old techniques become mainstream again. There are century-old structures that we can tour, but in another century, there will be no modern buildings still standing.

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> but in another century, there will be no modern buildings still standing

You sure? Many modern buildings are already 100 years old and in active use.

Empire State Building, for example, was built in 1930. Chrysler Building is from 1928. White House is from 1800.

I think we’ll be fine. Percentage wise we might end up keeping more modern buildings than we did of the very old ones.

My mom’s socialist style block of flats (in Slovenia) is from 1962 – 63 years old – and people keep living here and maintaining the structure just fine. Can easily imagine it sticking around for a long while yet.

> White House is from 1800.

The facade perhaps, but not the inside which dates to c. 1950: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_Reconstruction

Any building that is in active use needs to get major remodels every 30-50 years, and less major remodels every 5-10. The whitehouse has had significant changes since 1950, though not to the level of the 1950 changes.

My parent's stick built tract house is 60 years old and basically fine. Buildings last pretty much indefinitely as long as they are maintained.

> Buildings last pretty much indefinitely as long as they are maintained.

Not necessarily, no. Reinforced concrete infrastructure has an average lifespan of 50 to 100 years.

> There are century-old structures that we can tour, but in another century, there will be no modern buildings still standing.

That's ridiculous.

Although the claim is slightly exaggerated, it should be kept in mind that the average lifespan of a reinforced-concrete building or piece of infrastructure is between 50 and 100 years.

Which is why quite a few bridges in the US and in Europe are in critical state and collapse from time to time.

Having seen the floor plans of buildings that are 50 years old, they are already very dated and don't fit with modern needs. My house is 50 years old and the kitchen is horrible for use - it was considered state of the art in 1970 (and it has a major remodel in 1990), but the space allowed for a kitchen still shows the "women should be out of sight in the kitchen" sexism of the time. Now that women are not considered lesser, but people still have to eat (and thus cook) a functional kitchen where you can bring guests (again women didn't count as guests in the same way even though you invited them!) has become very important to modern houses.

>Which is why quite a few bridges in the US and in Europe are in critical state and collapse from time to time.

Bridges aren't comparable to buildings.

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