> Okay, this ought to be an empirical question. Does architectural ornament cost more or less than it used to? If somebody does a deep dive into this, I will absolutely link them. If you think you could do exceptionally good research in exchange for money, please contact me.
I'm not an architect, but I am a mechanical engineer and I worked for 7 years in a machine shop that served a variety of industries (including on occasion making jigs, molds, etc. for creating mass-produced architectural ornamentation and on *very* few occasions making custom-designed small-batch or one-off ornate items as gifts.)
From my experience, metal, plastic, wood, foam and concrete ornamentation is QUITE cheap now when you can use mass-produced pieces. You're looking at a few dollars for a single piece of ornamentation (or perhaps 10s of dollars if it's large with more significant material costs, etc.) Much cheaper than any pre-industrial architect would have access to.
On the other hand, our custom ornate work was far too expensive for any of our customers to afford. An ornate aluminum pencil-holder we made for one of our long-time customers that we had an excellent relationship with would have easily cost $2000 at our standard rates. Custom work is still extremely expensive, and if you're making an architectural show piece you'll need a lot of custom one-offs and small batches.
That's probably most of the difference in perspective here. Want to mass produce townhouses with a particular set of architectural flourishes? Much more affordable now than 100 years ago! Want to create a unique one-off building on your campus with a set of ornamentation to match its surroundings and your personal aesthetic? No more affordable than it was 100 years ago, and probably more expensive due to Baumol's.
The one other aspect that's worth mentioning is *stone*. When you can make do with concrete or brick of some variety, colored to look like your limestone or whatever, you can easily benefit from technology on mass produced bits. We can cast concrete blocks en masse (even with some ornate features) quite cheaply. If, on the other hand, you're not able to fake your stone with concrete (say, marble or obsidian, or you just really want authentic limestone) then you're looking at a tiny industry which has not benefited nearly as much from automation and is hitting Baumol's head-on.
> Okay, this ought to be an empirical question. Does architectural ornament cost more or less than it used to? If somebody does a deep dive into this, I will absolutely link them. If you think you could do exceptionally good research in exchange for money, please contact me.
I'm not an architect, but I am a mechanical engineer and I worked for 7 years in a machine shop that served a variety of industries (including on occasion making jigs, molds, etc. for creating mass-produced architectural ornamentation and on *very* few occasions making custom-designed small-batch or one-off ornate items as gifts.)
From my experience, metal, plastic, wood, foam and concrete ornamentation is QUITE cheap now when you can use mass-produced pieces. You're looking at a few dollars for a single piece of ornamentation (or perhaps 10s of dollars if it's large with more significant material costs, etc.) Much cheaper than any pre-industrial architect would have access to.
On the other hand, our custom ornate work was far too expensive for any of our customers to afford. An ornate aluminum pencil-holder we made for one of our long-time customers that we had an excellent relationship with would have easily cost $2000 at our standard rates. Custom work is still extremely expensive, and if you're making an architectural show piece you'll need a lot of custom one-offs and small batches.
That's probably most of the difference in perspective here. Want to mass produce townhouses with a particular set of architectural flourishes? Much more affordable now than 100 years ago! Want to create a unique one-off building on your campus with a set of ornamentation to match its surroundings and your personal aesthetic? No more affordable than it was 100 years ago, and probably more expensive due to Baumol's.
The one other aspect that's worth mentioning is *stone*. When you can make do with concrete or brick of some variety, colored to look like your limestone or whatever, you can easily benefit from technology on mass produced bits. We can cast concrete blocks en masse (even with some ornate features) quite cheaply. If, on the other hand, you're not able to fake your stone with concrete (say, marble or obsidian, or you just really want authentic limestone) then you're looking at a tiny industry which has not benefited nearly as much from automation and is hitting Baumol's head-on.