Should we restore ruins?

As reported by SALON …

Simon Jenkins has accused Country Life's present Architectural Editor, John Goodall, and his predecessor in the post, Jeremy Musson, of being the high priests of 'the cult of the ruin'.

Musson's new book, English Ruins, 'celebrates and exults such shrines as Glastonbury, Fountains, Dunstanburgh, Bodiam, Cowdray and even Battersea power station. England to him "is a landscape of ruins",' Simon writes. As for John Goodall, he has 'produced a majestic survey, The English Castle, with page after page of 'gaunt and gutted structures, ready for the Romantics to swoon over and the ministry of works to grasp to its bosom and timidly surround with nationalised grass'. Why, Simon asks, if 'old cathedrals and churches were vigorously restored by the Victorians, to be repaired and updated ever since, were most abbeys and castles frozen in time?' Was it, he asks, to keep archaeologists in work explaining the arcane mysteries of England's ancient ruins to the public?

Simon deplores the state of Witley Court in Worcestershire, gutted by fire in 1937 and left as a ruin, and praises Uppark, gutted likewise in 1989 but fully restored (ditto Windsor Castle, Hampton Court and Castle Howard). He refers to Westminster Abbey, Sainte Chapelle, the Kremlin and Carcassonne as brave examples of restoration (and could have added the palaces of St Petersburg and any number of townscapes in the war-torn parts of continental Europe). While admitting that some national icons derive their character from their ruined state (Fountains Abbey, Tintern and Chepstow Castle), he applauds English Heritage for its 'bold reconstruction of the Dover Castle interiors' and calls for more of the same.

How did the high priests respond? Writing to the Guardian, Fellow John Goodall denied that his book was evidence of the cult of ruins, pointing out the deliberate juxtaposition on the cover of a ruin (Bodiam Castle) and a living monument (the great hall of Berkeley, an occupied and privately owned castle). It is a question of funds, John argued, saying he doubts whether the money or the determination really exists to re-create an entire Roman fort on Hadrian's Wall or a villa in Kent, 'as Simon Jenkins has so delightfully proposed'.

Ian Leith also contributed to the debate, saying that 'architects or developers are not allowed to muse over new ways of using old buildings, so we get the theme park we deserve', and that this 'confirms a national conflict between imaginative designers and mythical remains', which seems to have been better handled on the continent, where we can 'wonder at modern interventions to old buildings which do not alter the original fabric and add new interpretations to such old sites'.

Jeremy Musson is unapologetic: ruins, he says in Country Life (27 April 2011), convey an important message about mutability, 'the rise and fall of dynasties, the waxing and waning power of Church and State, the tides of industry and war'. Ruins evoke different emotions and thoughts than complete buildings, and offer a different aesthetic experience. He quotes the seventeenth-century antiquary, John Aubrey, to the effect that ruins 'breed in generous mindes a kind of pittie; and set the thoughts aworke to make out their magnificence as they were in perfection'.