In the middle of the eigtheenth century, a new fad found its way
into the gardens of England's well-to-do: building fake Gothic
ruins. Newly constructed castle towers and walls looked like they
were already falling apart, even on the first day of their
creation. Made of stone, plaster, or even canvas, these "sham
ruins" are often considered an embarrassing blip in English
architectural history. However, Sham Ruins: A User's Guide expands
the specific example of the sham ruin into a general principle to
examine the way purposely broken objects can be used to both
uncover old truths and invent new ones. Along with architecture,
work by Ivan Vladislavic, Tom Stoppard, Alain Mabanckou, Aleksei
Fedorchenko, Michael Haneke, and Sturtevant is used to develop this
thesis, as well as artifacts such as pre-torn jeans, fake
histories, and broken screen apps. Using these examples, one of the
key questions the book raises is: what is it that sham ruins ruin?
In other words, if real ruins are ruins of what they actually are,
then sham ruins should be considered ruins of what they are not.
Thus sham ruins are about imposing new meaning where such meaning
does not and should not exist. They also can show how things we
think are functioning well are actually already broken. Sham ruins
do this, and much more, by being lies, ruses, and embarrassments.
This is what gives them the power with which we can think about
objects in new, unintended ways.
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