These Are Not Old Ruins: A Heritage of the Hrun

Abstract

The economic boom and subsequent collapse (Hrun) of the mid 2000s had a marked effect on Reykjavík, leaving various half-finished and empty structures with uncertain futures. Although the material culture of the economic collapse has been examined to some degree, the abandoned building sites have not. The Icelandic heritage discourse has so far had very little engagement with twentieth-century materiality and even less with twenty-first-century materiality but this paper contends that these places can nevertheless be seen as heritage. In order to engage with such places, the Icelandic authorized heritage discourse must be significantly broadened. Keywords: Counter-heritage • Ephemeral heritage • Ruin gazing • Ruins As I was driving toward Snaefellsjökull this past Christmas I was treated to an interesting sight (Fig.1). By the side of the road, a fallen over sign read: These are not old ruins. Intrigued, I stopped to locate the non-ruinous feature alluded to by the sign, and sure enough I came across a small concrete shed, built into a sloping hill probably shortly after the Second World War-certainly not old when compared to the time-depth of the landscape, inhabited for over a millennium. The shed itself was hardly impressive either. It looks overwhelmed by its setting, its grass roof perhaps an attempt to blend into the landscape, but its size and shape give the impression that it's being swallowed up by the hills surrounding it. When the shed is viewed from a greater distance, the dwarfing effect surroundings have upon it becomes even more

The paradox of ‘Incompiuto Siciliano Archaeological Park’ or how to mock heritage to make heritage

“…These types of heritage have been progressively included in heritage debates; this surprising development has succeeded in calming tensions. And so, if we opt for including the present case study within those categories that Holtorf and Högberg (2013) label as future trends in heritage, it is not unreasonable to state that the time has come for a so-called unfinished heritageespecially, if we examine how incompletion is increasingly considered a cultural value after the 2008 financial crisis and the unfinished spaces that it generated (Pálsson 2012).…”

Arruinamento e regeneração do espaço edifìcado na metrópole do século XXI: o caso de Lisboa

“…Os efeitos da recente crise financeira global gerada pelo colapso do mercado de hipotecas na produção de ruínas novas são um facto que tem sido documentado na bibliografia internacional (Pálsson, 2012;DeSilvey & Edensor, 2013;Kitchin, O'Callaghan & Gleeson, 2014). O estudo do caso de Lisboa não deixou evidente essa relação.…”

“…Resumir as fases ruinogénicas a grandes momentos histó-ricos de rotura no regime de acumulação parece redutor. Crises que não encaixam exatamente nessa tipologia, como o dot-com crash de 2000 nos eua (Frey, 2005) ou a Grande Recessão global de 2008 (Kitchin, O'Callaghan, & Gleeson, 2014;Pálsson, 2012), também produziram surtos de arruinamentos, além de que a produção de ruínas parece ser um processo praticamente contínuo e incessante.…”

Beyond the Aestheticization of Modern Ruins

“…In the early depiction of modern decay, 20 th century avant-gardes also persisted in these melancholic and nostalgic feelings (Kemp 1990). Back then, the focus on ruins representation was possible due to the starting popularization of photographyan evolving relation that has considerably increased in the last decade (Pálsson 2012). Today, "the taste for urban decay seems to be global" (Gibas 2010, 156), and as a matter of fact, visual representations of modern ruins are as global as the era in which we live: photographs contain the similar architectural elements and stylistic conditions regardless the exact location where they were taken (Fein 2011).…”