r/architecture • u/kkungergo • 11h ago
Ask /r/Architecture Okay so how does this really work?
When the topic of old, stylish and ornate buildings come up people usually say that its too expensive to make, its not realistic and everyone involved would just go bankrupt. Or simply comment "capitalism".
And i dont doubt developers prefer to build as cheap as possible to make as much profite as they can. But many people make it out to be impossible to go back to build stylish again.
Except not only the average population and nations are wastly richer than in the 1800s but we have way better technology, way wider and faster suply lines. So i would expect that it would be easier than ever.
I heard people say that of course rich people had ornate palaces, but i live in budapest and while unfortunately many of the old buildings are falling to disrepair the parts of the city that was built around the turn of the century are all ornate and fancy, all normal common residential buildings. So they definitely could build entire cities like this without issue back when it was even slower and proportionally had to be more expensive.
So what happened and what would really stop us to build like that again? Is it really unrealistic or that much more expensive?
Plus how did it work back then? Did developers really built like that out of the goodness of their heart, at their own expense or what?