Friday 23 October | 153, Malet Street | 18:00-20:00
To open our second season of events based on the theme, Ruin/s, BIRMAC is delighted to welcome Dr. Timothy Edensor, from Manchester Metropolitan University, who will give a talk entitled, ‘Ruins Are Everywhere’.
During their existence, buildings are continuously adapted to fulfil new functions and serve contemporary tastes. When this no longer pertains, ruination beckons, as maintenance ceases and buildings are abandoned. However, this maintenance obfuscates the endless processes that transform all materialities, the entropic and vital energies that change matter. In this presentation I explore three key processes that trigger accelerated ruination. Firstly, I discuss the properties of building components and the multiple agencies that assail the material world. Secondly, I investigate how questions of value determine whether a building becomes a ruin and inform human decisions based on changing political, social, economic and planning imperatives. Thirdly, I emphasise the key role of maintenance and repair in preventing ruination. I conclude by pointing out how signs of ruination litter all urban built environments to a greater or lesser extent.
Dr. Timothy Edensor is Reader in the School of Science and the Environment at Manchester Metropolitan University. His is author of several books, including Industrial Ruins: Space, Aesthetics and Materiality (2005).
Gallery of the event
This event follows the ASSC event, Architecture in Time: The Temporal Condition of Design, a one-day colloquium British Industrial Ruins Building Stone in the City of Manchester, with Ian Drew Spaces of Dereliction: Industrial Ruins in the UK.
