Why do so many Masonic Lodge buildings look old?
The issue of the older Masonic buildings is a paradox from the 1950’s when Freemasonry was in a boom era of incredible growth. At its height, Freemasonry had upwards of 4 million members and consequently lots of member money. With its growth of membership so to did its infrastructure expand. One of the consequences of having these expensive buildings that were built in the 1950’s and 60’s is that they eventually ultimately fell under needed to be updated to modern building codes which became very expensive. The consequence of this is that the buildings became less and less available for public and commercial use as they fell out of code. This with a declination in membership led to fewer and fewer funds to refurbish them. Today, there is an abundance of inventory of lodges, with a decreasing volume of membership.
