Why are ancient buildings still standing 1500+ years later, but some buildings built like 30 years ago are falling apart?
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Survivorship bias
Most of the buildings from centuries ago have long since been destroyed. The ones that are still around today are the ones that were really well build or had extraordinary steps taken to preserve them or were just lucky.
Most buildings build in the last 20 years will fall apart or be destroyed sooner or later, but some will last longer than others.
If you check back in a few centuries on surviving buildings from the first quarter of the 21st century, you will probably think that they don’t build them like they used to when comparing them to then current buildings.
There is an additional issue that some building methods come with inherent downsides. Reinforced concrete is really cool, but simply will not last as long as just piling some sandstone blocks on top of each other.
Also modern engineering allows you to build structures just strong enough to last as long as they need to. Without being able to simulate some things you had to add a far greater margin of error.
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