Architecture and Ruin

The world is young, we are gettting old.

What will we do when we begin to ruin ? More importantly, how do we treat something that is disintegrating around us ? More often than not, we try to encapsulate it in our panic - we clasp our hands together and hope to slow the sand from falling beteen our fingertips. This is merely an exercise in futlity, and knee-jerk reaction as a result of our conditioned tendency to attach.

It is interesting to think how to deal with this concept in an architectural context. What would the result be if we were to encapsulate an existing building in an attempt to prolong the inevitable conclusion of its disintegration ? If we were to de-construct a building would its phenomenon continue like memories of the deceased ? If we were to re-build an identitcal building to prolong its life by the length of its present existence, is it the same building ?

Something I have noticed within the psychadelic ethos is a connection to seperate realities and expansions of existence, it seems that this approach is intertwined with the investigation of memory vs physical nature. However, this exploration is invariably externally directed, an internal approach respects a scale that is impressionable on architectural thought.

A building adopts your memories. It reaches into your sub-conscious and attaches itself to the chronotopes of your past - forging new impressions and perspectives. By consequence, what happens when one structure adopts/envelops another ?

This man attempts to ignite similar discussion.

http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2009/05/11/locus-of-memory/

He is inspiring [although he has the advantage (?) of being closer to ruin than most of us]