Walked past two buildings on the same block today. One is a century-old brick warehouse. The other is a strip mall from the early 2000s clad in vinyl siding.
The brick building looks better than it probably did when it was new. The mortar has darkened. The brick face shows variation from decades of weather. There are ghost signs from businesses that occupied it fifty years ago. Every surface carries information about the building's history.
The strip mall looks worse than it did the day it opened. The vinyl is faded unevenly. One panel has cracked. The color has shifted in a way that communicates "cheap" in a way the original color did not. This building is working hard to hide its age and failing.
Two philosophies of time
Brick is a material that collaborates with time. It develops patina. It records weather and use. An old brick building looks "established." The material improves (or at least changes interestingly) as it ages.
Vinyl resists time. Its entire value proposition is that it stays the same. But nothing stays the same, so what you actually get is a material that slowly reveals the lie of its initial promise. An aging vinyl surface doesn't have patina. It has deterioration.
The design implication
When you choose a material, you're choosing a relationship with time. Materials that age honestly (brick, copper, natural wood, stone, raw steel) tend to look better with age because wear adds information. Materials that age dishonestly (vinyl, laminate, painted MDF) tend to look worse because wear subtracts from an illusion.
I wonder how many design decisions would change if the selection criteria included: "How will this look in twenty years, not just on opening day?"