Even some of the repairs made to the Edinburgh tram-line extension, which opened last year, have had to be repaired

“They don’t make ’em like they used to” is something that almost no one says anymore without some sense of irony. It has become such a cliché that it’s perhaps more often used as a sarcastic rejoinder to someone who succumbs to an excess of nostalgia.

However, news that repairs have already had to be made to cracked concrete on Edinburgh’s tram-line extension – which opened just 17 months ago – suggests the modern world is sometimes not half as good as it likes to think. Even some of the repairs had to be, er, repaired.

Light pours in through the hole at the centre of the dome of the Pantheon building in Rome (Picture: David Aschkenas/Construction Photography/Avalon) | Getty Images

We can, if we want, contrast these problems with the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome, the crowning feature of a much-admired building. You may wish to guess how old it is. A particularly fine example of 1950s ‘brutalism’? Sorry, stone cold. A Victorian marvel? Still frosty. A Gothic departure from stone? Getting warmer...

The answer is that the Pantheon in Rome was built nearly 2,000 years ago and remains to this day a shining example of what can be achieved – or at least could be in the ‘good old days’.

How the Ancient Romans put Edinburgh's tram-line extension to shame

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