|
In Lyon it's even more obvious. There are some restaurants with truely huge spaces that you rarely see anymore in France, like near the sucrerie, or the brasserie georges. But I think it's definitly about money, not culture. Today, we are more numerous, and there are more building to buid. Hence the projects are in competitions for the resources to build them, like stone or wood. Cement being cheap compared to stone, it wins. For the same reason, space is now a premium, and so it's expensive to have big volume for new constructions. What's more, a rich country mean rich people, and so richer workers. 80 years ago, you could abuse your workers so much, and pay them so little, it was much cheaper to build things that took a lot of time. Today, time makes or breaks a project rentability way quicker. Add to that you have to make everything up to code now, which is even more expensive. And with insurances everywhere, on top of that, environmnent risk evaluations, etc. And of course, a lot of building used to be constructed either by the state, or rich families. Now, you must borrow money to build, which mean you add the cost of the financial system. All those things add up. |