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Comment by walterburns | Hacker News Reader

The invention of the steel core made the stone facade unnecessary to support the building, so most new buildings are covered in glass instead of stone. That's related to less ornamentation, but to me that's the big distinction between beautiful old buildings and ugly new ones.

It also created a tremendous energy efficiency issue. Stone has much higher thermal mass than glass.

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the steel core made it possible to made full glass facades, but it didn't make it necessary

it was even more so of a conscious decision not to use any ornamentation that they weren't limited to stone facades (btw many steel core buildings had stone facades until recently, among other materials like precast concrete - in the financial district of London most buildings pre 2010 are not glass, and most post 2010 are)

it just seems to be the case that the ruling elites like those buildings, and that's the main reason they are pervasive across skylines

Depends on where you live. In a hot, humid climate, that thermal mass works against you because it never cools off enough to let you be passively cool. In a desert that gets cold at night despite hot days, it can work.

Also much more light from big windows making a nicer interior, and an exterior much easier to clean.

I don’t know that the energy efficiency calculation is that simple. Stone is much more mass to move in the first place, and modern glass and insulation technology is very, very good.

The other thing that happened was plate glass got cheap after WW2 when the Pilkington float glass process was introduced.

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