A few days back there was a HN submission on everything moving towards the average. Buildings looking the same. Skylines in many cities looking similar. The cars looking similar. There are also these meme posts on twitter "why we don't build such houses/buildings today" with some photo of a 13th century castle or cathedral.
It all boils down to economics. Average is cost efficient. Standardize the raw materials. Optimize the raw material for easy storage, handling and transporting. When made this way, it is also easier to maintain, find parts (door handles, replacement faucet, switch boards etc.)
The chettinad houses are super customized. The pillars are from Burma (Myanmar) teak wood seasoned for months in sea water, the walls are polished with egg white (no paint), the tile work and the intricate carvings on the doors and pillars are all a pain when it comes to economics.
It is not just the cost to maintain them. The people with knowhow on how to maintain these are long gone. The new generation engineers only know how to build things the standard/average way with the standard materials.
Maintaining beautiful, intricate old buildings costs money and I categorize it as an expensive hobby. There are people with the means and desire to do so (myself included) but it’s not for everyone. There are people who can fix anything but it comes at a price.
I will say I wake up every day in aesthetically pleasing beauty and that, to me, is priceless. Or at least that’s what I tell myself when the latest 5 figure repair comes in.
I don't really care about if the house I live in is a very detailed old house or a modern sleek one, because the time I spend there I am inside and not outside looking at it.
I get a lot of pleasure out of the building, it is an estate built before the city around it sprung up in this area, and we have a lot of foot-traffic. Many people take pictures, both because of the unique architecture and because I have a cat that sleeps on a dangerous-looking ledge (his favorite place, no idea why) which makes for a very interesting scene.
Sure, you don't look at the outside when you are inside. But I love walking up to it, I love playing with my kids out front, and something about owning and living in what is an extremely beautiful home has a positive effect on my mood and attitude.
Over the last decade we have spent probably $150,000 on various maintenance, but when we do them we don't cheap-out, and we try our best to ensure the improvements will last a very long time.
Definitely not for everyone, but I hope people continue to maintain the beautiful old buildings, it makes cities so nice to live in. We are not the only old estate around here and most of them are also lovingly maintained, so there is still interest.
The same is true for your own appearance. I think the original motivation for much of the intricate housing as well as intricate body sculpturing/make up/clothes is status assertion. But as I grow older, and especially for houses where the old owners have long gone, I begin to appreciate the aesthetics and dedication put into it. In some sense, motivations aside, it's a gift to the world.
Typically the detail is also present on the inside and hell I do spend a lot of time outside in the garden. (Tho mostly looking at my vegetables and the like.)
A great part of British culture is just how much money and care goes into maintaining even small one family 400 year old farming houses. It also creates real estate like no other.
Unfortunately the pressures on it are the same, the globalization and standardization pressures are quite large, and culturally too not just in prices. Somehow living in a white box with large windows is more trendy culturally than in a 400 year old house. I personally just don’t get it.
I also find what they’re doing in Budapest pretty interesting, they’re basically rebuilding the entire palace at great cost (and lots of construction corruption money). But I still think it’s an extremely good idea, and proves you can still build this stuff if you want to:
https://nemzetihauszmannprogram.hu/nhp-strategy-2021.pdf
> I also find what they’re doing in Budapest pretty interesting, they’re basically rebuilding the entire palace at great cost (and lots of construction corruption money).
Hungary is slowly moving away from democracy and this kind of project fits right in. That trend usually goes along with a tendency to try and awaken romantic, nationalistic feelings about the past. What better way to show Hungary's glory than restoring its palace?
This is a post about architecture and nice buildings.
You are bringing in your pseudo intellectual virtue signalling about the downfall of democracy into it.
Stop it. Go away.
Building nice buildings, and restoring heritage is nothing to do with "democracy" dying, unless you are a brainwashed left wing american, or someone who's bought the left wing american kool aid.
Edit: unfortunately it turns out that you've been making a habit of posting flamewar comments and using HN primarily for political and ideological battle. We ban accounts that do that, regardless of what they're battling for. I'm not going to ban you right now because we haven't warned you before, and because I do also see some good comments in your feed. But please review the rules and stick to them from now on, so we won't have to. (Also, please don't use multiple accounts to do this.)
I don't get your aggressive tone.
Politics and architecture are related to each other.
It literally says, in the document you linked, that they want to achieve a 21st century renaissance of their national identity. It's nice that the buildings get restored, I'm just adding further context.
> A great part of British culture is just how much money and care goes into maintaining even small one family 400 year old farming houses. It also creates real estate like no other.
My grans old 400+ year old cottage didn't require much money and care on the old bit. Stuff that's lasted 400 years is generally well built. The modern 1960s or so extension gave a few problems. The main structure of oak beams seems very solid - apparently in the event of a fire most other stuff can burn down and they are still left standing.
It's a shame it's hard to build similar stuff now - simple wooden frame in harmony with the nature around - due to planning regs etc.
Mass customization has been just around the corner for my entire life. And I’m old.
I don’t think it’s a production problem. I think the sad reality is that most people don’t want the burden of choice that customization brings. So it will always be niche, and therefore higher cost.
I don’t think customization is the right way to think about this. I was thinking about structures such as facades for multi-storey multitenant buildings. I don’t think consumers will want to 3d print their porches. On the other hand, if economical, architects would love probably to use leas standard shapes even in non-luxury projects.
You can get a non-mcmansion today if you want - but you often have to be building on your own land, and not buying a building in a development, etc.
And there are additional costs associated with it, but it's not INSANELY more expensive. You go from cookie-cutter to custom design, you're adding an architect at a minimum, probably 20%-50% more expensive (of course, you can go infinitely expensive if you want).
Most people don't 'build' - even when they buy new they're buying pre-built, with maybe some decisions on color/appliances, etc.
The term has some meaning in manufacturing -- it's usually taken to mean mass produced, but with each unit customizable for each user's order.
Just having more SKUs for color/size isn't really the same thing, though that's also valuable.
And of course there are places that will make exactly the shoe you want, using your choices of colors/fabric, all in a manufactured way. But it has not caught on as many expected.
And speaking from personal experience, my family has done similar stuff too in our ancestral village, though sadly it's increasingly abandoned as people move abroad or to larger cities to work as professionals.
And yea, it seems to be common occurance in all small formerly agrarian towns. I've heard similar stories occur in towns with a heavy migrant presence in Ningxia, Southern Romania, and Honduras. The life of a Garbeister/Guest Worker/Blue Collar Migrant I guess.
It demonstrates the folly of everybody’s status driven home buying in most any city around the world. I think the underlying behaviour is is not limited to migrants: it is just that the migrants so clearly demonstrate how deeply irrational we all are. [edit: Stereotypically] we think of the migrants wasting money on empty houses as crazy people, without identifying with them as being exactly the same as ourselves.
In fact the folly is more of a problem in developed countries because homeowners usually borrow as much money as they can to compete with others to buy a home: yet somehow a huge mortgage is not seen as irrational.
Disclaimer: I have a mortgage and on paper I have done very well on house appreciation over the last few years. I believe that renting is shorting the property market because we each require 1 unit of shelter. I admit I have been long the property investment market (even worse: mortgages are highly geared investments, and you can only get mortgages similar to variable mortgages in New Zealand).
I think you are misinterpreting the article and my post above, and honestly it is kind of insulting to compare first world house ownership with building unused property in your ancestral town.
I am really sorry but I am unsure of how I was insulting. I am saying that we all have similar drives in this world, i.e. I was identifying with the migrants. You know little about me but I admit I am fairly middle class and have never lived in any kind of poverty. Perhaps you are saying I can’t empathise with the lives of the migrants?
Maybe I am digging a hole here, but we are in the context of a BBC article about obscenely wealthy old mansions in Tamil Nadu, and also a British documentary by the BBC that feels condescending towards the people it presents, and perhaps an alien depiction of the relatively wealthy migrants. The doco mentions selling a hectare of field for USD400000, and a quote for building a block of flats at USD700000.
Not dissimilar to the rotting châteaus in Europe. Drastically expensive to maintain and modernise. The UK seems to be able to use tourism to maintain their stately homes, but even then nobody apparently wants to live in Buckingham Palace.
The difference here is that these are not royalty, just an entire community (a caste) of people who made the money by trade. Every chettiyar I know still has their “big house” in karaikudi though I assume these are not as opulent as these old mansions (most of them spend at least a month in these places every year). The interesting part is how most of them are indistinguishable wealth wise from other community folks even though they clearly started with great wealth a few generations back.
Many of those stately manor homes used to house entire villages, because they'd have some noble, his family, his extended family, and the entire support staff and their families, too. As modernization took over, the number of people needed dwindled - some of them had hundreds of residents at their peak. Nowadays a single family could provide the entire support staff for a manor; and rapid vehicle transportation means you don't even need to do all the maintenance, you can call a repairman from a nearby city.
Doesn't squatting rely on the police not kicking you out? That's how it works in the UK anyway. "Abandoned" doesn't necessarily mean there is nobody who takes an interest in the building at all.
It was a long time since I visited India (almost 20 years ago now), but when I went there were so many homeless people that on the way between the airport and Delhi city-center at night entire sidewalks were tightly packed with homeless people sleeping on them next to one another without gaps.
Those people are in the cities because they have jobs, or the hope of finding them, or at least enough people to beg from and dumpsters to dive. Maybe out in the country they'd find a roof to shelter under, but that doesn't do much good if you've got no food or money and no way to get either.
Yes, you'll see homeless people on the footpaths of Indian cities. I have visited plenty of small towns, but I can't recall seeing homeless people there at all. Quite a lot of the footpath dwellers come from nomadic communities, selling things like clay pots, handicrafts, etc. I don't know what percent of footpath dwellers are from such communities, or any other aspects of their demographics though. At least in Bangalore, I know from the language they speak that they are not from this state.
Yeah, outside of Mumbai I have seen very few "homeless". In India there is always a room to stay depending on the budget or how much you are willing to "travel". India also does not have a huge drug problem, and of course there is always the option of staying with parents / relatives / friends or going back to the native village. In cities with limited space and crazy real-estate prices like Mumbai it is different.
Most mansions I wouldn't even want to live in. They look like museums inside - not very comfortable. The rooms are too large, the ceilings too far away.
If I was going to build one, I'd build the crumbling castle from Edward Scissorhands - at least for the exterior.
Labour is much cheaper in India. Labour is the most expensive part of maintaining such houses. Given India's median income is much lower than the west, this price is still very expensive for most Indian families.
Very beautiful to see. On a recent visit to the Amer palace in Rajasthan (India), I was wondering how cool it'll be when AR tech evolves so that tourists visiting such places can get a much more immersive view of such monuments in their historic glory (complete with people speaking, music of the era, and whatnot). If anyone wants to co-build something in this space, please let me know!
If anyone in India has the time, I highly recommend visiting the towns around the Shekhavati region in Rajasthan. Every town is dotted with old mansions (“havelis”) - some maintained, some not - with some incredible architecture and fresco work.
we used to have an antique bed frame of king size, and it used to have a mirror which is imported from Belgium.
My great grandfather who used to be rich got it custom made.
It used to be so majestic, made of rose wood. The my dad got it broken down into two beds. I wish i had pics to show, but at those times photos used to cost something as you have to spend a reel film on it.
The real issues with these 'Havelis' as to say is they are pointlessly large without serving any end purpose. If you see the pictures. There is no concept of privacy. You could see the inside of rooms from the main hall. There are no rest rooms attached to bedrooms. There is often poor ventilation. There are 'living rooms', there are no other myriad other facilities and features people expect in the modern context of life.
> If you see the pictures. There is no concept of privacy.
I feel like you are looking at this from a western perspective. Normally Indian families have a much more communal culture. Lots of significance is given to common and shared areas.
> There is often poor ventilation.
This is also untrue. This might be something you have observed in poorly maintained houses that have been expanded with poor and unplanned construction, but traditionally Indian houses like havelis etc. are extremely well ventilated. You have to remember these were originally developed in a hot country before the advent of air conditioning. The windows and openings are often designed with ventilation in mind with jalis (intricate meshes) that adorn the openings to block sunlight and allow airflow.
It all boils down to economics. Average is cost efficient. Standardize the raw materials. Optimize the raw material for easy storage, handling and transporting. When made this way, it is also easier to maintain, find parts (door handles, replacement faucet, switch boards etc.)
The chettinad houses are super customized. The pillars are from Burma (Myanmar) teak wood seasoned for months in sea water, the walls are polished with egg white (no paint), the tile work and the intricate carvings on the doors and pillars are all a pain when it comes to economics.
It is not just the cost to maintain them. The people with knowhow on how to maintain these are long gone. The new generation engineers only know how to build things the standard/average way with the standard materials.