[单项选择]
4
When I was still an architecture student, a teacher told me, "We learn more from buildings that fall down than from buildings that stand up. " What he meant was that con struction is as much the result of experience as of theory. Although structural design fol lows established formulas, the actual performance of a building is complicated by the pas sage of time, the behavior of users, the natural elements--and unnatural events. All are difficult to simulate. Buildings, unlike cars, can’t be crash-tested.
The first important lesson of the World Trade Center collapse is that tall buildings can withstand the impact of a large jetliner. The twin towers were supported by 59 perimeter columns on each side. Although about 30 of these columns, extending from four to six floors, were destroyed in each building by the impact, initially both towers remained standing. Even so, the death toll (代价) was appalling—2,245 people lost their lives.
A. architecture is something more out of experience than out of theory
B. architecture depends just as much on experience as on theory
C. it is safer for people to live in old buildings
D. we learn not so much from our failure as from our success