Historic Ruins Case Study

For many centuries, ruins have been a source of visual and emotional fascinations, as well as inspirations for many artists, writers, and philosophers (Zucker, 1961). Historic ruins with their imperfection and incompleteness, represent the stories of the past and as important as any other historic building survived. Regardless, the conservations of historic ruins encounter numbers of challenges due to its continuous deterioration, a time-consuming process, and specialist skills required; as the result, conserving historic ruins are more expensive compared to other heritage places (Australian Heritage Council, 2013). To address this issue, one of the most effective approaches to ensure the ruins’ maintenance is to make use of the ruins (Kent, …show more content…
Therefore, it is essential to investigate in the local context, how stakeholders perceived values embedded to the historic ruins, and what are the impacts of the intervention to the values perceived by the stakeholders. Besides the added values gained, are there also the loss of values as a result of the contemporary design …show more content…
These case studies are the Church of St. Fransesc in Corbera d’Ebre; the Convent of St. Fransesc Auditorium in Santpedor, and Santa Caterina Market in Barcelona. The case studies were chosen based on similar contextual criteria that are discussed in the methodology section; as well as the different architectural design intervention approaches, where ‘the approach of visual works through their construction of function, fabric and form, can offer a means of assessing the immediate outcome and long-term effects of any intervention decision including compensation’ (Matero, 2006,