Ruin and architectural heritage in Brazil: memory and oblivion

Abstract

This article aims to present how Brazilian preservation policies identify architectural remnants in a state of ruin as cultural assets, focusing on the monuments listed by the National Historical and Artistic Heritage Institute (IPHAN, as the acronym in Portuguese). Such study starts from the question: what can be considered a ruin? We consider a ruin as a condition of de-characterization of architectural assets from any age, affected by degradations for different reasons. Different variables make complex their understanding: cause, degree and time elapsed from the beginning of the process of ruining, age and conditions of the building’s usage. Once combined, such variables direct interpretations, suggesting the organization of this analysis into three groups: ruins of time, ruins of negligence and ruins of the incident. In this structure, we find that there is a major impasse in identifying and assigning values to the ruins within the Brazilian preservation policies: how much is it desired to historicize the ruin status? In the key of memory and oblivion that are the conflicting paths of history, ruins play an essential role because of its dual informative capacity of reminiscence and loss. They are therefore dynamic records to establish a new fruition in the cognitive processes of the construction of memory.