k-punk

In the decades after the Civil War - ie probably almost a century before the Gothic Revival really got into its stride (and even longer b4 Romanticism) - there was a fashion among Englishmen owning big country estates to build FAKE ruins in em, to make them look nice/evocative/whatever...

Café culture and ruination are inextricably bound since they both occupy a space of absence, a lacuna in the urban landscape: both Starbucks, glistening with the insubstantial bustle of non-life, and an abandoned factory seethe with the inhumane, an absence of virile life. In both cases consumption, whether it is through decay or the generic drip of coffee, takes precedence over homeliness.

I have written of this elsewhere: http://poeticsofdecay.blogspot.com/2004_02_01_poeticsofdecay_archive.html#107661363274917740

i think albert speer built with "ruins" in mind. not sure if i have time to document this assertion, however . . . .