India's Forgotten Mansions
bbc.com
bbc.com
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.
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.
Spending it on the place you spend 50% of your time in sounds like a pretty good idea.
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.
You could spend it to help other people, if you’re out of ideas.
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
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?
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.
Go away, seriously.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
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.)
And then there is also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_country_houses_...
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.
Recent for sale thing on it https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/85546632#/media?chann...
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.
Maybe it's half shoe sizes, or barefoot running shoe alternatives, or shoes in a rainbow of color choices. Or custom PC builds.
Maybe customization will be the end-run around the "if you want a mansion, you can only get a mcmansion like everyone else" on your street.
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.
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.
Documentary about it among the Pakistani Norwegian community - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_fOYJ3_ZppM
Article about it among the Malayali community - https://theprint.in/features/kerala-has-a-ghost-houses-probl...
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.
The Malayali article is on archive here: https://archive.vn/iBLAZ
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).
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.
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.
If I was going to build one, I'd build the crumbling castle from Edward Scissorhands - at least for the exterior.
High ceilings help Karu the room cool, something needed in our fine country
Is it just me, or does that sound exceptionally cheap given what’s in the pictures?
I’d expect hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Full of memories.
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.
They are basically irrlevant.
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.