Culture Talk

What's lost when buildings fall? Questions after the Vanishing Japan piece

I read the GONOM post pairing Naomi Pollock's Vanishing Japan with Giada Ripa's Yokohama photo project and came away with more questions than answers.

Is Japan's habit of constant rebuilding a cultural thing, like the Ise Shrine being rebuilt every 20 years? Or is it mostly economics, earthquake codes and land prices? Both?

And as a former teacher, I'm wondering how you'd even teach heritage in a place where the buildings don't last. Does it live in photos, in books like Pollock's, in people's memories?

Anyone who's lived in Japan, does it bother people there, or is change just accepted?