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Ruins in BurgundyXIX-XXI

excerpt
Ruins in Burgundy
(p. 4)


In this guide, a building is considered to have become a ruin when its windows or doors are no longer intact or when walls or roofs have holes in them. When this happens, the building is exposed to the weather: to wind and rain, or to wildlife and vegetation. The building is no longer protected from exterior elements, nature invades, setting off a process in which building and nature merge. A building in ruin also shows the materials it was built from and its construction method, so that it gives insight into what it must have been like when it was being built, when the place was still a building site. The buildings that appear in this guide, Ruins in Burgundy XIX-XXI, hardly resemble archetypal ruins. Most of them are at an earlier stage; for example, an abandoned building in which the process of decay has only just started. Others have reached a stage at which the ruin has become little more than a pile of rubble.
These ruins and abandoned buildings have no use, no function. This means that they are left open to all kinds of possibilities. At a time when every inch of land seems to be organised and used with the utmost efficiency, the existence of these blank spaces is something to be grateful for. But it is important to remember that although some of these ruins will remain standing for some time, others will be renovated, and many of them will be demolished before long. It is important to visit them before they disappear.
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