Comment by niel

16 hours ago

This reminds me of Ise Shrine in Japan, which is completely dismantled then rebuilt every 20 years.

This is top of mind because I recently read Breakneck by Dan Wang. He makes the case that this practice of rebuilding the shrine preserves knowledge that would otherwise have been lost to time. Wang contrasts Ise Shrine with Notre Dame, where rebuilding the roof is apparently quite difficult, perhaps in part due to the loss of knowledge. I'm not familiar enough with either structure to judge whether this is a fair comparison, but I like the principle.

(Edit to add: This is only a minor analogy from the book, which I highly recommend overall.)