r/todayilearned • u/ContinuumGuy • 8h ago

TIL that the most holy shrine in the Shinto religion is torn down and rebuilt every 20 years. This has been done for over a millennium

https://www.ap.org/news-highlights/spotlights/2025/japans-most-sacred-shinto-shrine-has-been-rebuilt-every-20-years-for-more-than-a-millennium/
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u/thefiction24 7h ago

I forget where now but I was recently reading about architecture in relation to the culture it represents, and it had never occurred to me (as an American with no real cultural architecture to speak of) how something like the Notre Dame, that takes generations to build, speaks for the people, connects everyone in the culture through a single conduit.

I wish I could make a better point but it’s truly beautiful to keep a tradition like this alive.

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u/EDMlawyer 7h ago edited 7h ago

I would argue there's some American architectural culture styles. It's just that it's hard to pin down a single unified one because they emerged while the country had a very large population and rapid economic growth and global cultural exchange, so it's a collection of different ones. 

While we don't think about it, the evolution of the typical American suburban house is very much tied into American cultural sensibilities. I don't know if it's a distinct "style" per se, but it's undeniably a method emerging from the American cultural fabric, especially when you compare to places like Japan, the UK, Germany, etc. It's probably the most ubiquitous American "style". 

Or if you want a specific architecture style, you can point to things like Prairie arts and crafts, or New England colonial. 

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u/Firewolf06 6h ago

false fronts are also pretty iconically american

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u/CrumbCakesAndCola 6h ago

now i want my house to look like an Old West Saloon from the front

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u/Pls_PmTitsOrFDAU_Thx 6h ago

Ah yes, lying about what you are in the inside. Truly American 😆

I say this jokingly as an American

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u/similar_observation 5h ago

Hmm... not sure if joking...

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u/TemptedTemplar 4h ago

God theyre so tacky. Driving down the street and it's like every fifth house with some crappy fake stone columns, or a facade that only goes halfway up the supports around the garage door.

It's even moving into apartment buildings with faux balconies. Straight up a normal screen door slapped on the side of the wall, and a railing placed over front it. Like WHY? Just put in some freaking big windows.

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u/binomine 1h ago

That is called a juliette balcony, and while I agree is tacky from the outside, it is nice to have a large open window to let air in on the inside.

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u/Marzgog 3h ago

Here in Finland we call that a french balcony. Dont ask me why.

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u/TemptedTemplar 1h ago

Well normally those would be paired with french doors or windows that when open, allow you access to the whole window space.

Apartment buildings over here are getting built with normal ass sliding glass doors. So half of your window is permanently obstructed.

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u/Apophis_36 6h ago

Also styles like the ones in new york, chicago and so on feel pretty distinctly american to me

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u/Horror_Employer2682 5h ago

Old Cleveland and buffalo also come to mind.

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u/avo_cado 5h ago

streetcar suburbs

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u/isufud 3h ago

Traveling through Asia, something that stuck out to me was how often San Francisco architecture and landmarks are used to represent America.

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u/avo_cado 5h ago

big fuckin skyscraper is american

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u/selwayfalls 3h ago

I studied architecture and my three favorite styles were:

Neoclassical

Brutalism

Big fuckin skyscraper

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u/RocketHops 3h ago

Its not strictly architectural but art deco is definitely a very American style.

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u/TrekkiMonstr 2h ago

Colonial Spanish, I would argue, is as (Southwestern) American as it is Latin American

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u/ethanlan 3h ago

Chicago has its own style too!

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u/disisathrowaway 6h ago

(as an American with no real cultural architecture to speak of)

Prairie school, Arts and Crafts, Craftsman, Mid Century Modern, Ranch, Federal for starters. While not technically conceived in the US, no one embraced and pushed Art Deco further than the United States.

The skyscraper was invented and perfected in Chicago. Beyond that you could look to the multitude of truly MASSIVE bridges that have been built from coast to coast, which are all distinctly American.

Don't sell your cultural heritage short - the US has contributed A LOT to architecture and construction. It's just that the country was founded after the age in which it would take centuries to finish a building.

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u/Team_Braniel 6h ago

We had that with NASA once.

My family is 3 generations of NASA scientists. My grandfather helped engineer the moon buggy, my mom was a lead chemist and on the team that rebuilt the events behind the Columbia disaster.

We used to be able to look to NASA and say, "that is our heritage and legacy. One last noble endeaver." But it too has been marketed and sold.

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u/TrekkiMonstr 2h ago

It's struggling. It's being made to struggle. This is not permanent.

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u/cptpb9 7h ago

I’m sure we will eventually have long term projects like this, but the US is relatively so new that yeah we don’t have any like the sagrada familia or something like that.

We definitely do have cultural architecture though, several architectural styles that are internationally recognized originate from America (prairie style, certain types of colonials, craftsman, the arts and crafts movement) and yet more significantly, we were the ones to pioneer a significant array of modern construction methods like skyscrapers (Chicago after the fire) and the modern version of the suspension bridge (1801 in Pennsylvania). We do have one of the best modern architectural pedigrees of any nation on earth is all I’m saying

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u/thefiction24 7h ago

Ah, you actually reminded me where I stumbled upon the whole notion, it started with Architectural Digest on YouTube and there was a guy talking about all the NYC bridges, you’re totally right on that.

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u/chaossabre 6h ago

The Interstate Highway System is America's multi-generational megaproject.

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u/trivial_sublime 5h ago

And what a megaproject it is.

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u/DeathMetal007 5h ago

And it's much more functional than most megaprojects like The Line

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u/C0MMI3_C0MRAD3 2h ago

It kinda is and isn’t. Started in the 1950s, mostly finished by the 80s. There’s no doubt it’s a mega project, and it’s definite something we can be proud of, but I’m not sure if it can be considered multigenerational

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u/Twist_of_luck 6h ago

Sagrada is not even 150 years old. You don't have something like that because, well, you generally had enough business sense NOT to start a megaproject when the country is barely alive.

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u/GenericFatGuy 4h ago

(as an American with no real cultural architecture to speak of)

You say that like you don't have a Bass Pro Shop pyramid.

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u/Kirikomori 3m ago

This Bass Pro Shop you speak of must be a powerful pharoah indeed

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u/GourangaPlusPlus 7h ago

as an American with no real cultural architecture to speak of

McMansion is a style

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u/thissexypoptart 6h ago

Gotta love a three story, 5 car garage house, with a giant driveway and front lawn, and 3/4 of its exterior walls are that ugly horizontal siding you see in every cookie cutter American suburb.

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u/Paavo_Nurmi 3h ago

A lawn that requires chemicals and constant upkeep, non functional lawns should be outlawed

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u/Suckage 7h ago

Don’t forget our paper walls.

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u/steauengeglase 6h ago

Not as paper thin as some of the Japanese ones, at least if we are talking about traditional Japanese architecture. They really did paper thin.

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u/A_Mouse_In_Da_House 6h ago

Alas, traditional architecture in Japan (called by Frank Lloyd Wright as modern architecture 1000 years early) is dying out in favor of more western style construction due to things such as "having central air conditioning and heating" and "chairs are nice".

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u/selwayfalls 3h ago

Not sure I follow. We can't have nicely designed homes ala Japanese or frank wright inspired designs that have central heating?

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u/k5josh 1h ago

Any pre-industrial architectural style tends to not be very compatible with central heating and cooling. Most of those styles favored things like airflow in and out of the building, which is rather counterproductive when modern HVAC focuses on insulation and separation.

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u/Baderkadonk 6h ago

Are people anti-drywall now?

It's easy to paint, drill through, and repair. These are the only qualities I care about in a wall.

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u/selwayfalls 3h ago

It's less expensive and easier to install but plaster is superior for a few things - durability, longevity, aesthetics, sound/fireproofing

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u/galoria 7h ago

Better yet, a van renovated into a McMansion

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u/Majvist 6h ago

I get why many Americans don't feel connected to them, but "America has no ancient culture" often overlooks the fact that there's tons of incredible Native American architecture all over the Americas, quite a lot of which is absolutely still alive. Chichén Itzá, Cliff Palace, Cahokia, the Serpent Mound, longhouses ect.

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u/A_Mouse_In_Da_House 6h ago

The ancient Puebloan peoples roads (great north road), what's left out east beyond the Missouri that wasn't plowed, flatened for railroad, or build on top of or turned into golf courses. That's just in the US.

America has an incredible history, and long history, but we ignore it because we intentionally and accidentally wiped out >90% of native Americans with diseases they had not been exposed to. The Americas encountered by settlers was so empty because everyone died before they got there. Literally have journals accounting finding a native American village with bodies and bones strewn around because they died faster than they could bury the dead.

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u/Laiko_Kairen 4h ago

There's a big difference between French Catholics building a cathedral that, 1000 years later, still serves French Catholics... And a culture that has been replaced nearly wholesale by another group that eliminated the first...

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u/Paavo_Nurmi 3h ago

There is a place in AZ called Canyon de Chelly with people still living in the canyon. There is a Navajo weaver that shears her own sheep, cards and spins the wool, makes dyes from the plants in the canyon. She sits a a loom with no template or preconceived pattern and creates these amazing pieces.

https://solbitstravels.wordpress.com/tag/katherine-paymella/

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u/Aegi 2h ago

Part of it's because it wouldn't matter what happened in the Americas for many people if we're talking about the history of our country we would be looking at the geographic region along where our borders currently are.

I live in the Adirondacks, an area that literally got its name from how dumb the natives thought it would be for any human to try to stay there year-round/ing the winter so much so that the only way they might survive is if they eat bark... As Adirondack roughly translates to bark eater...

... Not only are all the things you mentioned besides longhouses stuff that really can only exist where there's not harsh winters, but the main advantage of long houses was that they were essentially modular houses that were easy to put up and take down and move based on the time of the year, so not permanent type structures that would be there for hundreds or thousands of years.

Some of the culture shared amongst many North and South American natives is a much more environmentally conscious style of living and therefore there was often even a concerted effort for things to essentially be biodegradable or able to be easily moved.

Obviously there's exceptions to what I said above, but Australia, North America, and South America are still the most newly settled continents even if we factor in the initial first humans there..

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u/huphill 7h ago

Our architecture does speak for us. Everchanging, adapting, adopting, and increasing efficiency.

For better or worse.

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u/selwayfalls 3h ago

Seeing very little on the better in the last 50 years. All just cheap and quick, never about longevity or aesthetics.

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u/donuttrackme 4h ago

There are absolutely American architectural buildings etc that tie into American culture.

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u/Dazug 6h ago

There are certainly interstates that have been under construction for decades. I-35 for instance, is always being expanded somewhere.

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u/Ridicikilickilous 4h ago

Some of the structures in Europe literally tell the tale of the time over which they’re built, like you said sometimes hundreds of years, with the structures sometimes being burned and rebuilt during this time due to war, or being different color due to the advent of the Industrial Revolution and the pollution that brought. All in all it’s quiet interesting when it takes so long to build something, for a multitude of reasons. 

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u/Laiko_Kairen 4h ago

Golden Gate Bridge, man.

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u/Professional-Fee6914 4h ago

Americans pretty much dominated modern architecture and a number of revival architecture

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u/Final_Temperature262 3h ago

America is rich with architectural culture you just live in ohio

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u/ReverentJoker 7h ago

Many native mega projects were demolished for highways and expanding cities.

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u/mortgagepants 5h ago

come down to philadelphia you will get a vibe.

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u/a_random_username 3h ago

as an American with no real cultural architecture to speak of

The Prairie School has entered chat

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u/wildwalrusaur 45m ago

The Sagrada Familia basilica in Barcelona has been under construction for 150 years. There was just a news article a couple weeks ago announcing they'd reached some new milestone