Difference between revisions of "Big Ruins"

Revision as of 10:23, 14 May 2014

Tim Edensor - RUINS ARE EVERYWHERE

• Writer of 'industrial ruins'
• He made a paper last year, when he submitted it they said the reference list too long, also now this year outdated - testament to the area's popularity

Ruination is only being held at bay for now

• Ruins are everywhere - decentering it by suggesting ruins is everywhere
• Illusion of fixity of place - even though we think of them to be the same, even if they were constructed centuries ago. What is the state of flux keeping it seemingly ephemeral and permanent at the same time? - Maintenance: a repetative maintenance that maintains the shape of our urban world.
• "while you are there it is actually falling down around you (but hopefully very slowly)"
• Durability and consistency - eg the last supper is constantly restored as a painting. We know it to be da vinci's work. but probably no speck of paint is actually original anymore! (but this is not about authenticity)
• Alan Weisman's The World Without Us - what would happen to the urban environment if we weren't there - ruination would immediately start with the stoppage of maintenance!
• How buildings are all liable to become Ruins. They fall apart unevenly, due to the quality of various materials they are composed of.
• Building is a process. structure to house systems. buildings as hybrid things. different physicality of different material. Building as emergent mosaic. Different temporalities of a building.

What shapes the process of ruination

• We think that most objects in the world are discreet objects. But all objects are actually liable to lose their form. To stop being discreet. Even the most inert looking objects can split, decay, transform, break into microscopic forms. Bits of an object transfer itself to other things, becoming other things. --> DD: DUST! SOIL!
• A thing is not a fixed essence. It could be affected by all sorts of other entities.
• he went to a ruin. 6 months later, it changed, the ruin itself. people graffitied it. plants colonised it. the materiality of it also decayed at incredible rate. depending on what the buildling was made, obviously.
• what are the properties of the stuff the building is made. what is the quality of material?
• he showed images of different structures which were made of similar material but of different QUALITY. one of inferior quality but same so called "recipe" for the walls.
• architect building manchester town hall said 'SPINKWELL sandstone' is fine as the material cos anyway later it will be covered in soot so outside material no one will see anyway. they avoided red sandstone which would have worn off quickly in manchester's acidic atmosphere. [Spinkwell is a resistant grey variety of sandstone consisting predominantly of quartz grains but with some mica grains providing a hint of sparkle]

what future ruins might look like?

• knowing what structural qualities persist over time, we might be able to imagine what future ruins will survive
• climatic effects compounded by pollution
• nonhuman lifeforms are also waiting to attack a building. pigeons, birds of prey, insects, mosses, lichen, trees, saplings, the ease with which they can access a building is surprising.
• biofilms (green stuff on walls) - porous surfaces and conditions which are largely present in abandoned buildings in manchester
• human agents of ruination - political decisions, clean air acts, economic decisions which render places detached from networks of production - the day that the factory stops. clearing away old modes of production to allow new modes to come in. certain buildings allowed to decay or devalue, some demolished and rebuilt totally. so many decisions affect the buidling.

maintenance and repair

• repair or ruination - who are the people fixing the city? why are the people who have to upkeep banished to the edges of society? we dont see how people are trying to clean the city.
• once a buidling looks shabby, we assume it is devaluing.
• surfaces. how can surfaces be touched up. can repair even be overdone like some weird patina which accelerates ruination? eg: insertion of WRONG mortar to repair broken mortar between bricks. old material was awesome but new mortar was cheap and allowed seepage of water which eroded the stone. rendering it susceptible to the elements.
• because cities are constantly being reconstructed, also depends on what material is available to the city (geologic/urban materialities) at that moment.
• importance of building materials? supply of materials to cities? who supplies them? have supply chains changed?

networks in ruins

• ruin networks. ruined connections - railways that no longer run after quarry runs out. quarry is also a ruined network space. now manchester buys stone elsewhere cheaply (rumcorn?) so local quarry no longer used.
• paths which lead to these places. now not used.

ruins are everywhere if you think of them as a process

• singapore - totally upkept. 100% update. hawker centres that are so shiny. no old stuff left. --> is it because we are a show city? a show room?
• THIS GIVES ME THE HEEBIEJEEBIES NOW! Singapore as a place with no ruins? or ruins everywhere (it is ruined without history now, anyway)
• traces of cities are everywhere. beneath the pavement, the other pavement. beneath the tarmac, the cobbles.
• efforts to replace absence (corners filled up decoratively in weird way)
• decorative features retained when building gone.
• bricked windows. faded adverts. concrete with metal structures sticking out. empty advertising. tech terms now obsolete. --> then what are spaces like under a bridge which do not advertise themselves?

in closing

• he was like "no its not romantic we need to move away from being a detached romantic" (good)
• pics of backdoors and back lanes where things we leave to decay cos they aren't on show or placed up front
• strange homogenous items (eg industry production) they decay at different rates although they are similar
• weird poetry of numbers, sculptures, juxtaposition
• without ruins you have sterile characterless cities

q&a

• someone said we shld connect ruins with story of ruined people; workers
• human voltaire human bodies are ruins too in away?? but not resignation but some dignity

Luke Bennett - the ruins of ruins

image, utility and materiality in the fate of broken places - http://lukebennett13.wordpress.com (natural & built environment) - bunkerologist? reuse of abandoned quarries? sheffield hallam uni.

• RUINOLOGY LITERATURE IS A WORD?
• discursive practice embodeid engagement with materiality wub weub fub bub z at first i was

GAZING UPON THE RUIN - from ruinphilia to ruinphobia

• (wince) (looking at MATTERING?) making sense of things. is it sublime? maybe not. a bit ruined. the warping of scale begins. edgar allan poe in the house of usher - 'the wild inconsistency in the stones'
• academic.... ruin as process? or ruins as hey what is public policy going to respond to a ruin with? (stop staring at them and do something!)
• ruinophelia? imperial ruin gazers?
• RUIN as memento mori - rise and fall of roman empire
• RUIN as opportune space - reused space. good or bad thing? not sure.
• Taking it to RUINPHOBIA - one, occassionally is nice, but lots often everywhere is problematic

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT DERELICTION - a history of dereliction in britain

ruin as contagion

• this requires a trip to locus horribilus
• slums, slum clearance, public health...
• fearing the people of the slums - social engineering?? trying to break up the slums or poor areas? large scale clearing of slum areas?
• 1969 - urban decay, dereliction, degeneration - derelict britain - anxieties!!!!!
• ruin as contagion - will one bad apple turn the whole block BAD? simcity anxiety!!!
• will wright's surprisingly deleuzian quote (he's the guy who designed sim city) - "modelling processes rather than structures"
• BROKEN WINDOW THEORY - another way to fear dereliction? the idea that to fix crime.... do you fix the environment first?
• 1960s modernist war against wasteland - fear of desolate unkempt land

_ 1990s - urban task force recycling buildings - "letting our cities down..."

• 2011: mary portas - fear of empty shops - empty buildings pulls down attractiveness and desirablity of land

ruin as wasted space

• "meanwhile" uses!!! the sin of emptiness! the war against empty homes!!!
• you spotproperty.com - rewarding you with monies to report to the council where is empty house
• uk from 2008 abolition of permanent 100% business rate relief for empty factories and warehouses - very costly to own unoccupied but usable buildings factory buidlings
• the ruin is dead, all hail the ruin.
• Result? some RUINED their places totally. so as not to pay for having usable things!

ruin as wasted matter

• the force of waste matter - eg: danger of asbestos!
• recycling ruins. how does a city recycle itself?
• why old stones not there? cos people took them to build barns and shit and stately home. knock down and use the stone. buy an old buiding and build your new building
• eg Shanghai - recycing of matter. urban clearance (showing voracious recycling) - reassmbly from old stuff
• the de-constructive gaze - lead stripped from roofs because it makes money - metal thieves - OUR RUINS
• our wouldberuins if you dont take care of them

closing

how we think about ruination matters

q&a