There is no good reason to preserve ruins as ruins. Even in rare cases where the destruction is from a known event that is itself worth remembering, the destruction of a building in particular doesn't particularly memorialize that event.
Ancient architecture belongs to common humanity. The purpose of it's preservation is served in the most pathetic way when ruins are allowed to sit in nature to become more ruined over time, less accessible to humanity at every time in the future.
True preservation will eliminate the damage, so far as possible, using ancient techniques to repair the building to a state as though it were never ruined; as though people actually cared about it and wanted it preserved in its glory, not in its fallen state.
A ruin preserved as a ruin is a tragedy both for it's potential future and for the aim of exposing modern people to the glory of the ancients. Which is more salient, to walk through a pile of rubble and think to yourself, "this used to be grand" or to walk through a grand coliseum and think to yourself "this is how it was"...?
The only proper preservation policy is rehabilitation for actual use. Moreover, these sites, as a common heritage of mankind can be legitimately protected but not legitimately preserved. What was once a sacred site for Romans might now be a sacred site for other Romans. What was a sacred site for Native Americans could now be a sacred site for Me. Limiting access either in the name of security or because restoration was never undertaken to allow safe use is a theft of communal property, not preservation.
This is my first attempt on this subject so i'd appreciate pointing out any additional points i've missed. Forget the naysaying, i dismiss all potential excuses for preserving decrepitude at two-fold public expense.
tearing down ruinous preservation policies
- Conde Lucanor
- Posts: 846
- Joined: Mon Nov 04, 2013 2:59 am
Re: tearing down ruinous preservation policies
Ruins are, by definition, destroyed, unusable structures. They cannot be repaired, only reconstructed. In many cases, reconstruction to allow new uses is allowed by preservation norms, which aim at respecting the distinction between what is old and what is new. Trying to blend them to pretend the result is a replica of the original building, is usually regarded as falsification of history and bad taste. And most of the time, there's no record of how exactly the original building was.