Do you enjoy your job?
Yes.
There is a profound difference between modern architecture that is built in months or years and ancient architecture that is built throughout decades or centuries. The amount of time it takes to build a structure sometimes reflects how long the structure will last.
Ancient architecture showed the wealth of a region by using materials far from where the structure stands. The detailed work in that material, the way the structure was hand built and crafted was done by many skilled artists with different styles and expertise. The cost to build ancient structures was more because the laborers were the artists, artists of intricacies. Art was a trade back then but was valued like engineers and programmers are valued today.
Building a structure in antiquity was art but before the art form it was technology. Every effort went into keeping technology and art as a beacon for wealth.
People would come from other regions to see incredible structures that they would admire from the outside. They could only go inside if they were invited. The crowds from outside would soon be able to gather inside ceremoniously, for short periods of time, as places of worship.
Churches that were built intricately began to show wear and tear and needed to be maintained so the occupants were asked to give money to pay for a new generation of artists to reconstruct and repair the aging structures. Decades or centuries had come and gone since the original construction and those artists had since passed. The art form was getting lost in time. As a result, the new artists were less skilled at intricate design but the clergy knew they could use the money for reconstruction to build new buildings that were larger, that could hold more paying worshippers. So they constructed more churches, some with less detail.
In a few of the ancient structures that were still intact from superior materials and craftsmanship, new artists brought other art mediums into the structures and painted on the ceilings and walls. Some scribbled into books between pews.
The inside of buildings would one day be compartmentalized so that each group could have their own floor instead of one ceremonious main floor with vaulted ceilings.
Over centuries intricate art moved from the whole building to just the outside. The art of every building was designated at the top of pillars or at the edges of the roof to ward off evil spirits with scary looking statues. Soon half a pillar running up the front of the building would suffice, or none at all, and gargoyles were replaced with red warning lights.
Buildings went from being tombs to places of worship to halls for presenting other forms of art. After the original art form, which started as technology, became a theater to showcase other art forms, structures became a business. A place to bring as many people that would come to watch acting, dancing or killing for sport.
There was then plenty of entertainment to worship so they came in droves to stay in regions with the biggest and most beautiful structures. The business of art and entertainment was upon us.
Buildings were built to house the growing population. Occupancy of these buildings became the driving force behind building buildings. Modern architecture became a homonym. Change became money.
The amount of people that pass through the doors or pay to stay is the goal of every modern structure. How long the structure lasts is the amount of maintenance put into it, a dead art form.
In order to build ancient structures, materials from far regions had to be moved by a large group of less skilled people. These people today are compartmentalized into buildings. Some maintain those buildings.
Some scribble into books between pews.
Francis Erich McElroy 