by LDV Studio Urbain
The urban fabric, and architecture in particular, has always been a testament to past societies, and to the way in which civilizations preceding our own lived and were organized. However, after the construction of prestigious ancient works and the ingenious buildings of modernity, it may well be that today’s architecture is an exception. What if our current era of consumerism and industrial capitalism is doomed to no longer produce ruins? This is a question asked by Bruce Bégout in his book Obsolescence des ruines, published in 2022 by Éditions Inculte.
Ruin: definition and temporality
Before asking the question of whether or not there will be ruins in the near future, it is important to define the object. What level of destruction does a building have to reach to be considered in ruins? Should it contain some remarkable particularity in the way it was built or in the materials used? When can we talk about ruins after the total abandonment of a building? According to Bruce Bégout, and according to a number of authors cited at the beginning of his book, such as Arthur Schopenhauer, Aloïs Riegl or Rebecca Solnit, the essential conditions that characterize them are the following: “First of all, there must be abandoned human constructions, and above all that remain for a certain time in this state. Then the way people look at them must perceive something other than simple debris of no interest.”
In the last pages, Bégout insists that “only that which is not immediately replaced can become ruin. What we let deteriorate, for various reasons, without intervening.” He thus emphasises all the temporal dimensions of a monument, which in order to become a ruin, must be invested but also abandoned for a certain period of time. And it is this second point that demonstrates all the ambivalence of a ruin, reflecting both its necessary solidity to last through decades, even centuries, and its inevitable fragility in the face of time that causes its decomposition.
The emphasis is also on the relationship that humans have with these deteriorating buildings. To be considered as such, a ruin must arouse affection, curiosity or nostalgia. It must provoke the desire to discover a history or the desire to visit remains, for one reason or another. And by losing its initial function of housing, equipment and commerce it must develop a new form of attraction and attachment. So what is changing today that could lead to an era without ruins: the impact of time on our buildings or the interest we have in them?
Produce, consume, discard
The observation Bégout makes, and which is shared by the philosophers, historians, architects and real estate agents cited in this book, is that our modern society is based on rationality and functionality. And that industrial standardisation is naturally transforming the way we conceive, and consider, our cities. Losing quality and resistance, new buildings are increasingly fragile, brittle and replaceable. Our homes, offices and schools become simple consumer goods, products that we manufacture, use and then throw away, like a perishable food: an“Ersatz urbanity” that is gradually renewing our urban landscapes.
This productive system in which we live, having emerged in close connection with the foundations of modern capitalism, means that everything quickly becomes obsolete, even before it has been used in the long term. And urban planning unfortunately does not escape the principles of the “consume and throw away” society. It is in this respect that the study of ruins can be particularly interesting, because it reflects, quite accurately and faithfully, our lifestyles and our social functionings, as Tocqueville affirmed, among others.
Obsolescence planning
In this case, what should emerge from the current social and economic model is that the impoverishment and obsolescence of our monuments are well and truly programmed. Indeed, the expiry dates of our buildings, their “becoming-disposable“, are now visible and predictable. This is neither a coincidence nor an anomaly, but rather a thoughtful and deliberate urban planning.
Whether in the forms or in the methods of construction, structural changes have been taking place in recent decades and leading to these results. The author states that “modern architecture ages badly, that is to say that the materials used (steel, concrete, glass) as well as the construction techniques chosen are incapable of producing, first of all solid buildings, then ruins that are equally resistant”. And this at a relatively high rate compared to the human scale: “What about a world where, due to their programmed obsolescence, buildings have a life expectancy at least half that of human beings? Where, in the course of an average life, does a man witness the disappearance of several generations of buildings?”, he asks.
This urban fabric resulting from late modernity, which is decomposing much faster than before and which is leading to the overall impoverishment of our local and historical spaces, thus generates different spaces, themselves qualified by different nomenclatures. Artist Robert Smithson uses the term “upside-down ruins” to illustrate the very common buildings of the New York suburbs that rise to ruins before they are even built, embodying the vernacular architecture of roadsides and “architecture of entropy”. Dutch architect and screenwriter Rem Koolhaas talks about “junkspace”, a garbage environment, a pure product of the 20th century, which reaches its apotheosis in the 21st century. A rather ugly “land ship”, of poor quality, not durable, which finally consumes itself.
Although all this depicts an inglorious vision of urban planning and architecture, it can nevertheless, as Bruce Bégout reminds us, contain virtues: “those of mobility, audacity, sincerity, experimentation, absence of guilt, spontaneity, etc. The anarchy of junkspace is thus one of the last tangible ways to experience freedom.”
A change in the function of ruin?
What if this new experience of freedom made it possible to renew the vestiges of our cities, or at least our attachment to them? Junkspaces do not actually produce ruins – at most, debris – due to their fragility and banality, but although they cannot achieve this status, the discovery of their rubble has nevertheless caused a certain revival of interest for many people. This is the principle of urban exploration, also known as urbex, or Haikyo in Japan. A practice in which people, out of curiosity or thirst for adventure, walk through dilapidated monuments and, in a sense, reappropriate them.
Translating the thought of the British poet and novelist Iain Sinclair in his work London Overground, Bruce Bégout describes this practice of urban exploration as “a contemporary passion for urban neglect, the residues of real estate and urban planning operations, failed, abandoned, degraded developments before their time”. He adds to this a sociological analysis of the movement and states that it is “based on a kind of unconscious repression of social conflicts (mass unemployment, damage to flexibility at work, cost reduction and social dumping)”.
The author thus shares a multitude of points of view, references and explanations on the history of ruins. It draws up a documented inventory and questions the future of the urban fabric. What kinds of ruins will our society leave behind? How could we change current practices to ensure the sustainability of our buildings? And what about the possible alternatives, in particular modular and ephemeral structures which, admittedly, will never produce solid ruins, but which respond to social and ecological crises and immediate needs?
First published in French on April 25, 2025, on the Fondation Bouygues Immobilier blog Demain la Ville. This translation by James Horrox.
Secessio 