Restoration: Authenticity and Deception

Within the narrative language of the arts, the image of the ruin is utilised as a metaphor for polarised conditions; it can support the visceral territories of the romantic scene or tell of apocalyptic events. As an image or art object, the ruin has the capacity to establish plot, place and event in a manner that is as powerful as it is subtle. The beauty of the ruin is a similar collage of polarities and subtleties: the inferred image of the original is present simultaneously with that of the remaining assemblage of material culture. The ruin is more than the remains of a building; it is a living museum, a narrator of histories, an objet d’art. The ruination of a building liberates it from the tyranny of function and use, transferring it into the sublime territory of antiquity and sculpture.