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Comment by mam2 | Hacker News Reader

Since i'm a kid i've never understood what good there was to keep ruins, as opposed to rebuilding "in the spirit of". In the end that's what do a lot of movies and video games and it's a better experience than visting ruins.

This may sound childish but I'm dead serious.

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Not disturbing an archaeological site leaves whatever's left for future, and perhaps more competent, archaeologists. Though at this point with the Colosseum specifically, I'm not sure there's any part of it left that hasn't been dug up or trampled on.

For one, look at how Sadam rebuilt Babylon. He literally rebuilt walls by putting new stone on top of the ruins. As expected, that caused permanent damage to the ruins. So what should have been done? Destroy the ruins and rebuild how it was?

I'm european and have been all over western europe and seen a ton of ruins and old buildings. I fully agree with you. Time destroys everything in the end. Rome especially is full of ruins that, if left untouched, will one day no longer be with us. Far too many to preserve in exactly their current state. I think we know enough to restore buildings with a decent degree of accuracy. I agree that we should try to be as faithful to the original as possible, but letting the buildings crumble to dust just means our descendants won't be able to enjoy them anymore. We could always be sure to document their pre-restoration state digitally, so we can double check the data in the future should we need to do so.

Not rebuilding does not mean letting the ruins crumble. The aim is to keep them in the state they’re in.

The Pantheon, which is close to the Colosseum, has been in use and maintained since it was built. They have about the same age. The Pantheon is well off, the Colosseum is almost a pile of rocks inside. I always wonder what their architects would think of us if they could see the state of their work now. I bet one of them would be sad. Well, not as sad as others that built buildings that were destroyed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheon,_Rome

Honestly, I’d say they’d all be amazed that anything was left at all. They’d never have seen a 2000 year old building themselves, unless they’d visited Egypt possibly. And statistically they’d be right; very few structures that old actually survive.

> very few structures that old actually survive.

That’s what makes the Pantheon so amazing. It’s easy to forget it’s that old when you’re standing inside, because the structure is still so sound!

Ever buy a souvenir on a vacation? Have anything you keep because it reminds you of some past experience?

This is pretty much the same thing on a societal level. Also consider that movies & videogames you mention would have no idea of what to put in them if things like this hadn't been preserved. If the Colosseum had been fully demolished after the fall of the Roman empire, no CGI would have been able to recreate it for your enjoyment in the latest AAA game.

It depends. If you use the same stone from similar quarries and stick to a faithful reproduction that might be a good experience. Otherwise imagine McMansion levels of construction quality to rebuild the colosseum. That would be disgusting. Also visiting ruins is an amazing experience. You can touch stones that were put in place by humans millenia ago. If that doesn’t stir something in you then you’re a different kind of person than me.

The more common thing (now) is to make the new work high-quality but clearly distinct. I presume that's what's planned here -- don't build all the basement walls up again with similar stone to an original-style stage floor, instead add a steel structure over all the old stuff holding a modern floor, with glass skylights for touring the ruins below.

Notre Dame post-fire reconstruction has a similar issue. Some of the stonework, i.e. the naves, needs work. According to PBS Nova geologists & architects located the old quarries for different stone around metro Paris.

Notre-Dame never made it to ruins, though. It is a building that was still in use and still has a function to fulfil. And the people rebuilding it have a good idea of how it was before.

It’s quite different from patching up however we can something that was left to rot for centuries.

This actually used to be common enough. And the things rebuilt were often ruined. “Leave well enough alone, or at most sensitively restore” is a fairly modern idea.

What you see now is the result of previous poor restorations. The Colosseum had become overgrown with plants and was like a large public garden. It was unique. For many of the plants it was the only place you could find them in Western Europe. It is believed that the seeds from many of the plants were transplanted through the excrement of the animals from the games.

I agree with you in theory and that's why I'm excited by the Assassin's Creed games' exploration variants and by the potential for VR to permit temporal tourism like this.

But the answer is pretty easy: we don't restore these things because we're never sure if we're doing it right. Think of it as giving everyone the raw data and letting them fill in.

Yes but does it mean REALLY something to "do it right" ? I mean, everything is a product of the current civilisation. If there are changes there are changes and it will reflect OUR civilisation maybe 1000 more years in the future. Why are we the first civilisation / period to care so much about "being right" when the colosseum was already rebuilt multiple times.

I'm not sure the "potential value" of having ruins is really higher than just redoing a nice building at some point...

" I mean, everything is a product of the current civilisation"

Wow. You might want to check history again, or you have a very broad(to the point of meaningless) definition of civilisation.

Anyway, some other point: I for one enjoy certain old ruins much more, than most modern buildings. And even though I would like to see them in their former glory, I know that in most cases this would be increadibly hard, or just impossible, unless you just want a cheap movie requisite.

Well, since we're arguing "potential value", and this isn't being stonewalled by authority against public opinion, I suspect you're simply in the minority as to the value (which, after all is dictated here by the market of public opinion).

Which is a long way of saying "You think it has low value as it stands, and high value as something else, but you don't have the wallet to buy it from the guys currently holding it" which is a long way of saying "People's tastes differ and you're in the minority".

About value..Thats a way too static way of looking at life. It's the typical subject where 1% of the population think that and the rest don't care and would agree with anything...

But if you really think about it most nice monuments visited by tourists in any city, like churches, temples are actually buildinga mostly well restored and currently used in some way.

Colosseum is just a bunch of ugly ruins. Visiting Colosseum was one the most underwhelming experience of my life and I've travelled quite a bit. just build something nice Instead

Then you can rebuild it elsewhere or visit it in video games. Once you destroy a ruin, it’s gone. Doing it for the sake of entertainment sounds selfish, particularly when we have other ways of experiencing it.

the idea of rebuilding in the spirit of was common in the XIX century, with figures like Eugène Viollet-le-Duc. But such restorations are controversial, since it's rather hard to exactly restore building as they were and it will be even more complicated to agree on what the spirit of building is, especially for buildings which had a long history and been modified multiple times.

We don’t bother in the west, but in Japan they rebuild ancient temples every couple decades or so.

I've always thought the same! It would make history so much more relatable and generate more interest in ancient buildings.

They wouldn't even have to do all of it, just one third would at least show us what we think it used to look like!

I agree with you, it would be more impactful to go to the colosseum and see a show, knowing this is how Romans did it thousands of years ago at this very spot in these same seats, than to basically go and just see a dump.

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