IN-PERSON: Prague – Section A

Abstract

If modernity has been associated with progress, a considerable part of its built legacy is facing rapid decay. Industrial wastelands and buildings of overthrown political systems are turning into “recent ruins”. Unlike their ancient counterparts deliberately preserved, they display a continuous passage of time arguably exemplifying the ruin per se. The preservationist imperative of saving culturally significant objects for an indefinite future is here challenged. While recognizing this as a challenge, the paper advocates for the process of decay as a moment to think built heritage beyond the agenda of saving: for exploring ephemerality and messy temporalities as productive of value and the possible claims this holds to the notion of heritage itself – a notion still prevalently contingent on material stabilization. To address this, the paper argues for a revitalization of earlier thoughts on preservation. It revisits art historian Alois Riegl’s definition of “age value” from 1903 – the appreciation of the visible traces of time on an object. Followingly, the paper suggests a re-reading of a “recent ruin”, the Denge Sound Mirrors from 1928-1930, beyond its value as historical document and need of being “saved”. Instead, the paper will employ the notion of “Ekphrasis” – the vivid description of a work of art – as approach to capture atmospheric and affective qualities of decay, otherwise absent in the current preservation discourse of the site. The aim is to reconcile the historically dissonant relationship between ruination and preservation, suggesting preservation as a creative just as much as restorative field of practice.