I’m reading through Robert Ginsberg’s The Aesthetics of Ruin (2004) again and came across this wonderful poem he wrote about the different options for a ruin (120):
Awakening to ruins necessitates making choices. These choices of what to do about the ruins are choices of who the community is.
Choice for Ruin
tear it down
rebuild it
leave it alone
forget about it
build on top of it
move it to a museum
clean it up
use it for something else
landscape it
pave around it for a parking lot
put in a service road
forbid highway access
fence it in
erect a ticket booth
write a guidebook for it
sell reproductions and postcards
permit guided tours
make it a national monument
seek designation as a World Heritage Site
denounce it as a local eyesore
mow the grass
let it grow
put in lighting
put on sound-and-light shows
sell ice cream
install toilets
add gift shop
tear down contiguous structures
employ guardians
advertise on posters
distribute brochures
build interpretive center
introduce telephones
sell color film
support scholarly research
open tea house.
Source
Ginsberg, Robert. 2004. The Aesthetics of Ruins. New York: Rodopi.
