40 Historic Photos That Might Change How You See The Past, As Shared On ‘History Repeated’

Bored Panda asked Frank, the founder of 'HistoryRepeated,' about the inspiration behind the online group.

"It's just a hobby to create this for everyone," he told Bored Panda.

"There are so many unique historical places in the world, and old photos of famous places really are nice in themselves to see, but sometimes also have very unique and/or forgotten stories."

"It's nice to repost them [the stories] in one central place for everyone who likes a bit of history about the famous and less famous places in the world with a great story," Frank told us.

He added that, from his perspective, great and timeless photos are those that focus on something unique or show off lesser-known facets of a place.

Building something—anything!—that stands the test of time is phenomenally difficult. The same goes for architectural legacies. The passage of time eventually wears down all things, and it is incredibly expensive to build things that last. Not to mention the costs of maintenance and repair. But it’s still possible to do with enough resources.

However, in many cases, it’s not time, but the conscious decision to demolish a building that ends its lifespan.

According to Dezeen, most commercial buildings have a standard design life of around 50 to 60 years, “and it’s common for them to last only half that long.”

Mel Allwood, the sustainable buildings director at Arup, told Dezeen that it’s tough to predict when buildings will outlive their usefulness.

After all, a building has to have a useful function. And in some cases, it might be cheaper to tear something down than to renovate or retrofit it.

That being said, when you choose to demolish a building, you’re also destroying the architectural and cultural heritage of the location. And if whatever you build in its place ends up being destroyed just a few decades later, you’re creating a cycle of permanent demolition instead of preservation. It would be smarter to instead try to predict what functions might be needed in the future and to create buildings in such a way that it’s easier to adapt their interiors if need be.

“The very long-life building that is always raised in these circumstances is the Pantheon. The function is very basic: it’s the gathering of people in a city centre. It’s almost the lowest common denominator of what society is,” Allwood told Dezeen.

“It is fundamental that we want that material investment to have as long as possible to repay itself. But the constraint is about utility. If it stops being useful, it’s no longer paying back its investment, it’s just taking up space. And that judgement is really interesting.”

Allwood explained that if she “had a magic wand that would allow [her] to predict what kind of functions we're going to use buildings for in 20 years time, 50 years time, 100 years time, [she’d] be doing something else.”

Meanwhile, as Dezeen points out, some buildings are specifically built to last as long as humanly possible.

The Global Seed Vault in Svalbard, deep in the Norwegian permafrost, is one example of this. It is built in a way to last indefinitely and to withstand everything from climate change and nuclear winter to literal asteroid strikes.

And yet, Peter Söderman, the architect, told Dezeen that the building’s longevity “wasn’t that important” during the design process. However, in recent years, longevity has become a more and more important topic, as the conversation about architectural lifespans shifts.

“We have to think about buildings that they have a longer life expectancy than before. We’ve been building buildings with a 50-to-100-years perspective, but we actually should think longer than that.”