User:Maculosae tegmine lyncis/sandbox

Ruins are the remains of failed structures. They are found wherever there are buildings of stone. Deliberate human action and natural disaster, gradual deterioration and neglect are all causes of such structural failure. Ruins provide evidence for the past and are reminders of human mortality. They have inspired numerous writers and artists, since ruin is "part of the general Weltschmerz, Sehnsucht, malaise, nostalgia, Angst, frustration, sickness, passion of the human soul; it is the eternal symbol." Their conservation aims to reconcile the competing demands of stability, intelligibility, and authenticity.

Man
Purposeful destruction of cultural heritage has always formed part of war, since "the first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory". During the Persian Wars, the Greek allies swore "I will not rebuild a single one of the shrines which the barbarians have burnt and razed but will allow them to remain for future generations as a memorial of the barbarians' impiety". WWII

Nature
Albert Speer Theory of Ruin Value

Imagination
A ruin "liberates matter from its subservience to form ... form from its subservience to function". Romanticism

Literature
Although elegy upon ruin is not a major topos of classical literature, Cicero is moved by the ruined walls of Ancient Corinth and is consoled, upon the death of his daughter, by a friend who writes of the once prosperous cities of the Saronic Gulf lying prostrate in ruins before his eyes. Pausanias in his Description of Greece invites readers to "restore the ruins in their minds". The Ruin is the first poem on the theme in English. Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey "Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate" Sonnet 64 Petrarch Hypnerotomachia Poliphili

Desolation, dislocation, nostalgia, and lament in a poem in the Man'yōshū by Hitomaro, when he passes the ruins of the former capital: "here were the mighty halls, now it is rank with spring grasses. Mist rises, and the spring sun is dimmed. Gazing on the ruins ... I am filled with sorrow". Li Bai

Art
Et in Arcadia ego Piranesi

Preservation
The urge to repair and rebuild may be traced back to biblical times (Isaiah 61:4). Authenticity.

Intelligibility
stripping of accretions & C19/20 recreation of Roman Forum likewise Parthenon