The Longevity of Ancient vs. Modern Buildings

Visiting Pompeii is like instantly transporting yourself back through time. It's an amazing experience to see buildings which after 2000 years are still basically intact. It's almost impossible to explain how awesome it was to walk down streets with large buildings on both sides and even 2000 years later, be able to tell what was sold there. Or walking into a room and seeing 2000 year old artwork still on the walls. My favorite was walking down the streets and being able to see graffiti on the walls endorsing political ideas and elections. Pompeii is mind blowing.

After visiting Rome as well, it's astonishing to see numerous buildings which have lasted over a thousand years. As Americans, it's hard to even think about that because we have essentially nothing that can compare in the States...and we probably won't pass on anything like it either. Based on our building tendencies, it's unlikely many of our modern structures will last over 1000 years, let alone 2000. In our culture, we've chosen a form of building that favors efficiency over durability. We acknowledge that our buildings will not stand the test of time but in the short run are much cheaper and much faster to build. We are giving up longevity for short term efficiency in a way that leads me to label our way of life as the “IKEA Culture”. We invest in cheap, quick, “put it together yourself” type material instead of investing in things that will provide the most utility for the longest period of time.

Looking at the structures we build serves as a portrait of many parts of our culture. We tend to value short term gain over long term gain. A simple example of this is our growing global warming crisis. We are hesitant to change our lifestyles because we do not see the effects of our actions. We are willing to curse our long term future (and the future of our civilization) as long as we can maintain the lifestyles we have now, which we are comfortable with. I hope that we can make the shift to looking long term more often, but it may only occur when we truly have our backs to the wall.

The Pantheon

In terms of the building we've seen all over Italy, it's apparent that although this may not have been their primary goal, the old builders had their eyes on durability and longevity. Even after a building had served it's original purpose, it was strong enough to be re-allocated and used for another one. For example, in Rome, the Pantheon had been used as a pagan temple for years before being stolen by the Church and transformed and used for Christian purposes.