It is comforting to realise that people have always resisted new technology. They have always hated modern buildings too. What archaeologists call skeuomorphs is known as mimetic ornament to architects, but it's roughly the same thing. In the 20s and 30s, acres of mock-Tudor houses sprang up around every town in the country, their facades criss-crossed with timbers recalling happier days of wattle and daub. Today, of course, our preferred style is Georgian, in a vague and sensitive sort of way. Similarly, Egyptian temples are often adorned with images of bundled papyrus, and ancient Mesopotamian brick walls are made to look like older mud and reed ones. The elegant domes of renaissance Italy feature ornamental columns that hold nothing up. In Paris, the extravagantly carved and sculpted stone facade of the Grand Palais merely covers a functional steel support.

It all shows that at any point in history you might have heard people with large ears denouncing monstrous carbuncles and praising traditional hising schemes. Through the ages people have been turning their backs on comfortable, light new homes in favour of bumping their heads on beams in dark draughty ones, where if it's not one thing needing replacing it's another, but hey,who cares, the period features are great.

The faster the pace of change, the more people cling to old designs. An absence of horses was the main difference between carriages and early cars. Nobody except Chicago gangsters shooting their way out of a crisis ever used the running board, but it survived for decades as a reminder of the days when a groom, touching his forelock, would extend a hand to help the passengers aloft.