Albert Speer and the Fascist Theory of Ruins. I recently attended an interesting little talk by Brian Dillon on the subject of ‘Modern Ruins’ at my beloved Barbican.
The talk was tied-in with an installation by Robert Kusmirovski, called ‘Bunker’, which is basically a reconstruction of a generic underground military installation which revels in its artifice, its aestheticised faux-dilapidation and its ambiguous play of historical sign. Dillon (who had to rush off to an awards ceremony for which he was nominated) gave a whistle-stop tour of theories of ‘the Ruin’, most of which he suggested was covering old ground, and in a way it was. Protecting historic architecture and places. What's the be.