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{{About|ruins in architecture|other uses of Ruin and Ruins}}
{{Redirect|Ruined|the play by Lynn Nottage|Ruined (play)|the EP by Ceremony|Ruined (EP)|the 2023 film|Ruined (film)}}
{{short description|Remains of human-made architecture}}
{{Globalize|article|Europe|date=October 2014}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2020}}
[[File:Gymnasion und Therme aus Südwest.jpg|thumb|[[Salamis, Cyprus|Salamis]], Ancient Greek ruins in [[Cyprus]].]]
'''Ruins''' ({{ety|la|ruina|a collapse}}) are the remains of a [[civilization]]'s architecture. The term refers to formerly intact structures that have fallen into a state of partial or total disrepair over time due to a variety of factors, such as lack of maintenance, deliberate destruction by humans, or uncontrollable destruction by [[List of natural phenomena|natural phenomena]]. The most common root causes that yield ruins in their wake are [[Natural disaster|natural disasters]], [[War|armed conflict]], and [[population decline]], with many structures becoming progressively derelict over time due to long-term [[weathering]] and [[Scavenger|scavenging]].

There are famous ruins all over the world, with notable sites originating from [[History of China|ancient China]], the [[Indus Valley civilisation|Indus Valley]], [[History of Iran|ancient Iran]], [[History of Israel|ancient Israel]] and [[Judea]], [[History of Mesopotamia|ancient Iraq]], [[ancient Greece]], [[ancient Egypt]], [[History of Yemen|ancient Yemen]], [[Ancient Rome|Roman]], [[History of India|ancient India]], sites throughout the [[Mediterranean Basin]], and [[Inca Empire|Incan]] and [[Maya civilization|Mayan]] sites in the [[Americas]]. Ruins are of great importance to historians, [[archaeology|archaeologists]] and [[anthropology|anthropologists]], whether they were once individual [[fortification]]s, [[Place of worship|places of worship]], [[Ancient higher-learning institutions|ancient universities]],<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://travelnewsindia.com/nalanda-university-ruins/|title=Nalanda University Ruins {{!}} Nalanda Travel Guide {{!}} Ancient Nalanda Site|date=2016-10-05|newspaper=Travel News India|access-date=2017-02-18|language=en-US}}</ref> houses and utility buildings, or entire villages, towns, and cities. Many ruins have become [[World Heritage Site|UNESCO World Heritage Sites]] in recent years, to identify and preserve them as areas of outstanding value to humanity.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://whc.unesco.org/en/about/|title=World Heritage|first=UNESCO World Heritage|last=Centre|website=whc.unesco.org|access-date=19 March 2018}}</ref>

==Cities==
[[File:Surb Amenaprkitch.jpeg|right|thumb|The [[Holy Saviour's Church, Gyumri|Holy Saviour's Church]] in [[Gyumri]] after the [[1988 Armenian earthquake]], the strongest earthquake in the [[USSR]] in terms of the number of victims]]
[[File:Post-and-Grant-Avenue-Look.jpg|right|thumb|[[1906 San Francisco earthquake]]: Ruins in vicinity of Post and Grant Avenue.]]
Ancient cities were often highly militarized and had fortified defensive [[Human settlement|settlement]]s. In times of war, they were the central focus of [[War|armed conflict]] and would be [[looting|sack]]ed and ruined in defeat. For example, [[Delhi]], the capital of [[India]], has been destroyed and ransacked seven to ten times and subsequently rebuilt. Every ruler decided to rebuild the city in their own way -- either overlapping the ruins or next to the ruins. Remnants of the prior cities can still be traced in the layout of modern-day Delhi.<ref>[[Max Weber]], ''[[The City (Weber book)|The city]]'', 1958</ref>

Although less central to modern conflict, vast areas of 20th-century cities such as [[Warsaw]], [[Dresden]], [[Coventry]], [[Volgograd|Stalingrad]], [[Königsberg]], and [[Berlin]] were left in ruins following [[World War II]], and a number of major cities around the world – such as [[Beirut]], [[Kabul]], [[Sarajevo]], [[Grozny]], and [[Baghdad]] – have been partially or completely ruined in recent years as a result of more localized warfare.<ref>http://urban.cccb.org/urbanLibrary/htmlDbDocs/A036-C.html Stephen Graham, ''Postmortem City: Towards an Urban Geopolitics''</ref>

Entire cities have also been ruined, and some occasionally lost completely, to [[Natural disaster|natural disasters]]. The [[Ancient Rome|ancient Roman]] city of [[Pompeii]] in modern-day [[Italy]] was completely destroyed during a [[Types of volcanic eruptions|volcanic eruption]] in the 1st century CE, and its uncovered ruins are now preserved as a [[World Heritage Site]]. The city of [[Lisbon]] in [[Portugal]] was also [[1755 Lisbon earthquake|completely destroyed in 1755]] by a massive [[earthquake]] and [[tsunami]]; and the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake]] in the [[United States]] had left the city in almost complete ruin.

==Deliberate destruction==
[[File:Whitby Abbey 060615.jpg|thumb|left|Ruins of [[Whitby Abbey]], England]]
[[File:Talin Cathedral.JPG|thumb|left|The 7th-century [[Cathedral of Talin|Cathedral]] in [[Talin, Armenia|Talin]]]]
[[File:Kısıl Kilise (Sivrihisar) 01.jpg|thumb|left|Ruins of [[Kizil Kilise|Kızıl Kilise]], "Red Church" in [[Güzelyurt]]]]

[[File:Kajaanin linna.jpg|thumb|right|Ruins of [[Kajaani Castle]] in [[Kajaani]], Finland]]
Apart from acts of war, some important historic buildings have fallen victim to deliberate acts of destruction as a consequence of social, political and economic factors. The spoliation of public monuments in Rome was under way during the fourth century, when it was covered in protective legislation in the [[Theodosian Code]]<ref>''Codex Theodosianus'', xv.1.14, 1.19, 1.43.</ref> and in new legislation of [[Majorian]].<ref>''Novellae maioriani'', iv.1.</ref> The dismantling increased once popes were free of imperial restrictions.<ref>See Dale Kinney, "Spolia from the Baths of Caracalla in Sta. Maria in Trastevere", ''The Art Bulletin'' '''68'''.3 (September 1986):379-397) especially "The status of Roman architectural marbles in the Middle Ages", pp. 387–90.</ref> Marble was still being burned for agricultural lime in the Roman Campagna into the nineteenth century. 

In Europe, many religious buildings suffered as a result of the politics of the day. In the 16th century, the English monarch [[Henry VIII of England|Henry VIII]] set about confiscating the property of monastic institutions in a campaign which became known as the [[Dissolution of the Monasteries]]. Many [[abbey]]s and [[monastery|monasteries]] fell into ruin when their assets, including lead roofs, were stripped.

[[File:Ury House Aberdeenshire.jpg|right|thumb|[[Ury House]], [[Aberdeenshire]] ruined by removal of the roof after the Second World War to avoid taxation.]]
In the 20th century, a number of European historic buildings fell into ruin as a result of taxation policies, which required all structures with roofs to pay substantial [[property tax]].  The owners of these buildings, like [[Fetteresso Castle]] (now restored) and [[New Slains Castle|Slains Castle]] in [[Scotland]], deliberately destroyed their roofs in protest at, and defiance of, the new taxes.  Other decrees of government have had a more direct result, such as the case of [[Beverston Castle]], in which the English parliament ordered significant destruction of the castle to prevent it being used by opposition [[Cavalier|Royalist]]s. Ireland has encouraged the ruin of grand Georgian houses, seen as symbols of Britain.{{cn|date=January 2023}}{{efn|A selection chosen for their picturesque value, appear in Simon Marsden (photos), Duncan McLaren (text), ''In Ruins: The Once Great Houses of Ireland'', 1980, expanded ed. 1997.}}

==Relics of steel and wooden towers==
[[File:Abandoned Packard Automobile Factory Detroit 200.jpg|thumb|right|[[Rust Belt]] ruins of former factory, [[Detroit]], Michigan]]

As a rule, towers built of steel are dismantled, when not used any more, because their construction can be either rebuilt on a new site or if the state of construction does not allow a direct reuse, the metal can be recycled economically. However, sometimes tower basements remain, because their removal can be expensive. One example of such a basement is the basement of the former radio mast of [[Deutschlandsender Herzberg/Elster]].

The basements of large wooden towers such as [[Transmitter Ismaning]] may also be left behind, because removing them would be difficult.

The contemplation of "[[rust belt]]" post-industrial ruins is in its infancy.<ref>But see Tim Edensor, ''Industrial ruins: spaces, aesthetics and materiality'', 2005.</ref>

==Aesthetics==
[[File:Ruin in the middle of a green field by Kernow Skies.jpg|thumb|250px|In modern times ruins such as these are sought after for their aesthetics]]
In the Middle Ages Roman ruins were inconvenient impediments to modern life, quarries for pre-shaped blocks for building projects, or marble to be burnt for agricultural lime, and subjects for satisfying commentaries on the triumph of Christianity and the general sense of the world's decay, in what was assumed to be its last age, before the [[Second Coming]].{{Citation needed|date=June 2024}} With the [[Renaissance]], ruins took on new roles among a cultural elite, as examples for a consciously revived and purified architecture ''all' antica'', and for a new aesthetic appreciation of their innate beauty as objects of venerable decay.<ref>The European career of the pleasure and pathos absorbed from the European contemplation of ruins has been explored by Christopher Woodward, ''In Ruins'' (Chatto & Windus), 2001.</ref> The chance discovery of Nero's [[Domus Aurea]] at the turn of the sixteenth century, and the early excavations at [[Herculaneum]] and [[Pompeii]] had marked effects on current architectural styles, in [[Raphael's Rooms]] at the Vatican and in [[Neoclassical architecture|neoclassical interiors]], respectively. The new sense of [[historicism]] that accompanied neoclassicism led some artists and designers to conceive of the modern classicising monuments of their own day as they would one day appear as ruins.

[[File:Ziegler Janscha 001.jpg|thumb|left|Ruins made-to-measure: the "Roman Ruin" in the park at [[Schönbrunn Palace|Schönbrunn]], c 1800]]
In the period of [[Romanticism]] ruins (mostly of [[castles]]) were frequent object for painters, place of meetings of romantic poets, nationalist students etc. (e.g. [[Bezděz Castle]] in [[Bohemia]], [[Hambach Castle]] in Germany, [[Devin Castle]] in Slovakia).

[[Ruin value]] ({{langx|de|Ruinenwert}}) is the concept that a building be designed such that if it eventually collapsed, it would leave behind aesthetically pleasing ruins that would last far longer without any maintenance at all. [[Joseph Michael Gandy]] completed for [[Sir John Soane]] in 1832 an atmospheric watercolor of the architect's vast [[Bank of England]] rotunda as a picturesquely overgrown ruin, that is an icon of [[Romanticism]].<ref>Widely illustrated in this context, including in David Watkin, ''The English Vision: the picturesque in architecture, landscape, and garden design'', 1982:62</ref><ref>[[Núria Perpinyà|PERPINYA]], Núria. [http://www.logos-verlag.de/cgi-bin/buch/isbn/3794 Ruins, Nostalgia and Ugliness. Five Romantic perceptions of Middle Ages and a spoon of Game of Thrones and Avant-garde oddity]. Berlin: Logos Verlag. 2014</ref> ''Ruinenwert'' was popularized in the 20th century by Albert Speer while planning for the [[1936 Summer Olympics]] and published as ''Die Ruinenwerttheorie'' ("The Theory of Ruin Value").

Ruins remain a popular subject for painting and creative photography<ref>Simon O'Corra: ''France in Ruins, Buildings in Decay'', London 2011 {{ISBN|978-1-906137-23-6}}</ref> and are often romanticized in film and literature, providing scenic backdrops or used as [[metaphor]]s for other forms of decline or decay. For example, the ruins of [[Dunstanburgh Castle]] in England inspired [[J. M. W. Turner|Turner]] to create several paintings; in 1989 the ruined [[Dunnottar Castle]] in Scotland was used for filming of ''[[Hamlet (1990 film)|Hamlet]]''.
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== Footnotes ==
{{Notelist}}

==See also==
*[[Modern ruins]]
*[[Dissolution of the monasteries]]
*[[Ephemerality]]
*[[Folly]], for garden ruins
*[[Ghost town]]
*''[[Ozymandias]]'', an English poem about ruins
*[[Romanticism]]
*[[Shipwreck]]
*[[Slighting]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
{{wikiquote}}
{{Commons category}}
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20070927101034/http://www.rodopi.nl/functions/search.asp?BookId=VIBS+159 Robert Ginsberg, The Aesthetics of Ruins (New York/Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2004)] (archived)
*[http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~janzb/place/lossplace.htm Bibliography: Loss, Decay, Ending of Place]
*[[Rose Macaulay|Macaulay, Rose]], ''The Pleasure of Ruins''
*[http://ruinmemories.org Ruin Memories Project]

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[[Category:Ruins| ]]
[[Category:Former buildings and structures]]