Ruins

Ruins
Ruins are the remains of human-made architecture: structures that were once complete, as time went by, have fallen into a state of partial or complete disrepair, due to lack of maintenance or deliberate acts of destruction. Natural disaster, war and depopulation are the most common root causes, with many structures becoming progressively derelict over time due to long-term weathering and scavenging. There are famous ruins all over the world, from ancient sites in China, the Indus valley and Judea to Zimbabwe in Africa, ancient Greek, Egyptian and Roman sites in the Mediterranean basin, and Incan and Roman Forum ruins in Rome Mayan sites in the Americas. Ruins are of great importance to historians, archaeologists and anthropologists, whether they were once individual fortifications, places of worship, houses and utility buildings, or entire villages, towns and cities. Many ruins have become UNESCO World Heritage Sites in recent years, to identify and preserve them as areas of outstanding value to humanity.[1]

Cities
Ancient cities were often highly militarized and fortified defensive settlements. In times of war they were the central focus of armed conflict and would be sacked and ruined in defeat.[2] Although less central to modern conflict, vast areas of 20th century cities such as Warsaw, Dresden, Coventry, London and Berlin were left in ruins following World War II, and a number of major cities around the world such as Beirut, Kabul, Sarajevo, Grozny and Baghdad have been partially or completely ruined in recent years as a result of more localised warfare.[3]
San Francisco Earthquake of 1906: Ruins in vicinity of Post Entire cities have also been ruined, and some occasionally lost and Grant Avenue. completely, to natural disasters. The ancient city of Pompeii was completely lost during a volcanic eruption in the 1st century CE, its uncovered ruins now preserved as a World Heritage Site. The city of Lisbon was totally destroyed in 1755 by a massive earthquake and tsunami, and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake left the city in almost complete ruin.

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Deliberate destruction
Apart from acts of war, some important historic buildings have fallen victim to deliberate acts of destruction as a consequence of social, political and economic factors. The spoliation of public monuments in Rome was under way during the fourth century, when it was covered in protective legislation in the Theodosian Code[4] and in new legislation of Majorian.[5] and the dismantling increased once popes were free of imperial restrictions.[6] Marble was still being burned for agricultural lime in the Roman Camapgna into the nineteenth century.
Ury House, Aberdeenshire ruined by removal of the roof after the Second World War to avoid taxation.

In Europe, many religious buildings suffered as a result of the politics of the day. In the 16th century, the English monarch Henry VIII set about confiscating the property of monastic institutions in a campaign which became known as the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Many abbeys and monsateries fell into ruin when their assets, including lead roofs, were stripped. Following World War II, a number of European historic buildings fell into ruin as a result of taxation policies, which required all structures with roofs to pay substantial property tax. The owners of these buildings, like Fetteresso Castle (now restored) and Slains Castle in Scotland, deliberately destroyed their roofs in protest at, and defiance of, the new taxes. Other decrees of Winston Churchill visiting the ruins of Coventry Cathedral after the government have had a more direct result, such as the Coventry Blitz of World War II case of Beverston Castle, in which the English parliament ordered significant destruction of the castle to prevent it being used by opposition Royalists. Post-colonial Ireland has encouraged the ruin of grand Georgian houses, symbols of British imperialism.[7]

Ruins

Relics of steel and wooden towers

As a rule, towers built of steel are dismantled, when not used any more, because their construction can be either rebuilt on a new site or if state of construction does not allow a direct reuse, the metal can be recycled economically. However sometimes tower basements remain, because their removal can sometimes be expensive. One example of such a basement is the basement of the former radio mast of Deutschlandsender Herzberg/Elster.
Ruins made-to-measure: the "Roman Ruin" in the park at Schnbrunn, c 1800

The basements of large wooden towers such as Transmitter Ismaning may also be left behind, because removing them would be difficult. The contemplation of "rust belt" post-industrial ruins is in its

infancy.[8]

Aesthetics
In the Middle Ages Roman ruins were inconvenient impediments to modern life, quarries for pre-shaped blocks for building projects, or of marble to be burnt for agricultural lime, and subjects for satisfying commentaries on the triumph of Christianity and the general sense of the world's decay, in what was assumed to be its last age, before the Second Coming. With the Renaissance, ruins took on new roles among a cultural elite, as examples for a consciously revived and purified architecture all' antica, and for a new aesthetic appreciation of their innate beauty as objects of venerable decay.[9] The chance discovery of Nero's Domus Aurea at the turn of the sixteenth century, and the early excavations at Herculaneum and Pompeii had marked effects on current architectural styles, in Raphael's Rooms at the Vatican and in neoclassical interiors, respectively. The new sense of historicism that accompanied neoclassicism led some artists and designers to conceive of the modern classicising monuments of their own day as they would one day appear as ruins. Ruin value (German: Ruinenwert) is the concept that a The ruins of the Parthenon in Athens, Greece. Much of the building be designed such that if it eventually collapsed, it original marble which formed the roof and frieze now forms would leave behind aesthetically pleasing ruins that would last a pile of rubble at its base. far longer without any maintenance at all. Joseph Michael Gandy completed for Sir John Soane in 1832 an atmospheric watercolor of the architect's vast Bank of England rotunda as a picturesquely overgrown ruin, that is an icon of Romanticism.[10] Ruinenwert was popularized in the 20th century by Albert Speer while planning for the 1936 Summer Olympics and published as Die Ruinenwerttheorie ("The Theory of Ruin Value"). Ruins remain a popular subject for painting and creative photography[11] and are often romanticized in film and literature, providing scenic backdrops or used as metaphors for other forms of decline or decay. For example, the ruins of Dunstanburgh Castle in England inspired Turner to create several paintings; in 1989 the ruined Dunnottar

Ruins Castle in Scotland was used for filming of Hamlet. The Civilization series of turn-based strategy computer games features ruins as special tiles which may provide the player with a bonus when explored.

References
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] World Heritage Centre - World Heritage (http:/ / whc. unesco. org/ en/ about/ ) Max weber, The city, 1958 http:/ / urban. cccb. org/ urbanLibrary/ htmlDbDocs/ A036-C. html Stephen Graham, Postmortem City: Towards an Urban Geopolitics Codex Theodosianus, xv.1.14, 1.19, 1.43. Novellae maioriani, iv.1. See Dale Kinney, "Spolia from the Baths of Caracalla in Sta. Maria in Trastevere", The Art Bulletin 68.3 (September 1986):379-397) especially "The status of Roman architectural marbles in the Middle Ages", pp 387-90. [7] A selection chosen for their picturesque value, appear in Simon Marsden (photos), Duncan McLaren (text), In Ruins: The Once Great Houses of Ireland, 1980, expanded ed. 1997. [8] But see Tim Edensor, Industrial ruins: spaces, aesthetics and materiality, 2005. [9] The European career of the pleasure and pathos absorbed from the European contemplation of ruins has been explored by Christopher Woodward, In Ruins (Chatto & Windus), 2001. [10] Widely illustrated in this context, includingin David Watkin, The English Vision: the picturesque in architecture, landscape, and garden design, 1982:62. [11] Simon O'Corra: France in Ruins, Buildings in Decay, London 2011 ISBN 978-1-906137-23-6

External links
Christopher Woodward, In Ruins (London: Vintage, 2002) (http://www.amazon.com/dp/1400030862/) Tim Edensor, Industrial Ruins: Space, Aesthetics and Materiality (London: Berg, [2005) (http://www. bergpublishers.com/uk/book_page.asp?BKTitle=Industrial Ruins) Dylan Trigg, The Aesthetics of Decay: Nothingness, Nostalgia, and the Absence of Reason(New York: Peter Lang, 2006) (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0820486469) Robert Ginsberg, The Aesthetics of Ruins (New York/Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2004) (http://www.rodopi.nl/ functions/search.asp?BookId=VIBS+159) Bibliography: Loss, Decay, Ending of Place (http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~janzb/place/lossplace.htm) Macaulay, Rose, The Pleasure of Ruins Ruin Memories Project (http://ruinmemories.org)

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File:Tavares.Forum.Romanum.redux.jpg Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Tavares.Forum.Romanum.redux.jpg License: GNU Free Documentation License Contributors: Civvi, G.dallorto, Longbow4u, Mac9, Marcok, Nuno Tavares, Sailko, Sir Lothar, YolanC File:Post-and-Grant-Avenue.-Look.jpg Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Post-and-Grant-Avenue.-Look.jpg License: Public Domain Contributors: Awadewit, Evian Pepper, Madmax32, Ramaksoud2000 File:Ury House Aberdeenshire.jpg Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Ury_House_Aberdeenshire.jpg License: Public Domain Contributors: Original uploader was Brideshead at en.wikipedia File:Churchill CCathedral H 14250.jpg Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Churchill_CCathedral_H_14250.jpg License: Public Domain Contributors: Horton (Capt) War Office official photographer File:Ziegler Janscha 001.jpg Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Ziegler_Janscha_001.jpg License: Public Domain Contributors: Ziegler / Janscha File:Parthenon from south.jpg Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Parthenon_from_south.jpg License: Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 2.5 Contributors: Thermos (Thermos)

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