Ruins
This article is about ruins in architecture; for other meanings, see ruins (disambiguaton).Ruins is a term used to describe the remains of man-made
architecture: structures that were at one time complete but have fallen into a state of disrepair over time due to the action of
weathering and lack of
maintenance.
There are famous ruins all over the world, from ancient sites in
Judea to
ancient Greek and
Roman sites in the
Mediterranean Sea, and
Incan sites in
Peru. Ruins can be
fortifications,
places of worship, or remnants of houses, storehouses, or other buildings, or even entire cities and towns. Ruins are important for the studying of the past, in particular history and archaeology. There are also substantial ruins in modern cities such as
Rome and
Athens. Ruins often occur as a result of natural disaster, war or other forms of depopulation. Many European cities were in ruins after
World War II, especially
Berlin,
London,
Coventry and
Dresden.
Ruins are often romanticized in literature and film, and often provide a backdrop for other forms of decline or decay.
*"
Ozymandias"
*
Folly*
Dissolution of the monasteries* Dylan Trigg, The Aesthetics of Decay: Nothingness, Nostalgia, and the Absence of Reason (New York: Peter Lang, 2006) [
1]
* Christopher Woodward, In Ruins (London: Vintage, 2002) [
2]
* Tim Edensor, Industrial Ruins: Space, Aesthetics and Materiality (London: Berg, [2005)[
3]]
* Robert Ginsberg, The Aesthetics of Ruins (New York/Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2004) [
4]
* Bibliography: Loss, Decay, Ending of Place [
5]
