What to Do with Ruins?
Contemporary Uses of Ruination
Published on 5. September 2025
Book
Hardback
248 pages
978-1-83624-538-4 (ISBN)
Description
The essays in this book explore the history of ruins in multiple cultures and periods. Authors study ways in which ruins can be appropriated, foregrounded and re-semanticized for political purposes. The links between the materiality of monuments and global processes of ruination are seldom explored, as are the historicity of rubble and its museumification. Ruins are predicated on the interplay between presence and absence; they remind us of caducity while conjuring up the spectrum of the completeness that would negate them. They can awaken the eeriness of the disintegrating modern city and serve as a metaphor for institutional decay. But they can also underpin proposals of restoration through salvage and reuse of the rubble.
Reviews / Votes
"[This book] is a timely publication and it shows new perspectives and modes of how to approach [this] complex topic." - Zoltan Somhegyi - Associate Professor of Art history, Department of Philosophy, University of Szeged, Hungary "[This book] is a fascinating collection of contributions that complement each other so that readers can easily follow the transversal themes raised by the editors." - Professor Till Foerster, University of BaselMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Liverpool
United Kingdom
Illustrations
Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 239 mm
Width: 163 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-83624-538-4 (9781836245384)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Joan Ramon Resina is Professor of Iberian Cultures and Comparative Literature at Stanford. Laura Menendez Gorina is Research Manager for Computational Social Sciences and Humanities and Education at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center.
Content
Introduction. Modernity in Ruins.
Chapter 1. Alain Schnapp. The Resistance of Ruins.
Chapter 2. Andreas Schoenle. Contested and Detested Ruin: The Russianised Afterlife of the Church of the Tithe in Kyiv.
Chapter 3. Daniel Baric. A Tale of Two (Ruined) Cities: Salona (Croatia) and Doclea (Montenegro) in Socialist Yugoslavia and beyond.
Chapter 4. Jennifer Scappettone. From Colossus to Copper Particulates: Liberty Enlightening the World as Ruin.
Chapter 5. Gaston Gordillo. Rubble and Revolution: The Making of Worlds as Creative Destruction.
Chapter 6. Francesc Torres. Rubble, History and Time.
Chapter 7. Merce Picornell. Use, Preservation and Emotional Mapping of Ruinous Objects: a Reading from the Perspective of Francesc Torres's La campana hermetica (The Hermetic Bell).
Chapter 8. Christoph Wulf. The Humboldt Forum in the Berlin Palace. Ruin of the Past - Place of the New.
Chapter 9. Pablo Arboleda. MacGuffin in Ruins: A More-Than-Representational Tale of Urban Exploration.
Chapter 10. Costica Bradatan. Amid the Living Ruins of the Cynic School.
Chapter 11. Joan Ramon Resina. The Ruins of the University.
Chapter 1. Alain Schnapp. The Resistance of Ruins.
Chapter 2. Andreas Schoenle. Contested and Detested Ruin: The Russianised Afterlife of the Church of the Tithe in Kyiv.
Chapter 3. Daniel Baric. A Tale of Two (Ruined) Cities: Salona (Croatia) and Doclea (Montenegro) in Socialist Yugoslavia and beyond.
Chapter 4. Jennifer Scappettone. From Colossus to Copper Particulates: Liberty Enlightening the World as Ruin.
Chapter 5. Gaston Gordillo. Rubble and Revolution: The Making of Worlds as Creative Destruction.
Chapter 6. Francesc Torres. Rubble, History and Time.
Chapter 7. Merce Picornell. Use, Preservation and Emotional Mapping of Ruinous Objects: a Reading from the Perspective of Francesc Torres's La campana hermetica (The Hermetic Bell).
Chapter 8. Christoph Wulf. The Humboldt Forum in the Berlin Palace. Ruin of the Past - Place of the New.
Chapter 9. Pablo Arboleda. MacGuffin in Ruins: A More-Than-Representational Tale of Urban Exploration.
Chapter 10. Costica Bradatan. Amid the Living Ruins of the Cynic School.
Chapter 11. Joan Ramon Resina. The Ruins of the University.