bye bye, Nimrud, bye bye

[ahinton]

There is a school of thought that even one performance of many modern compositions is one too much

Is there indeed? (although "much" should surely read "many" if indeed it's to be read at all?) Do you know who funds and runs this school? It sounds even worse than the much better known Viennese Secondary School...

[french frank]

I suppose the idea of actively preserving the past is a comparatively recent one (Victorian ?) - previously we seemed to be quite happy for buildings to gently fall into decay, some of Henry VIII's palaces were ruins within fifty years of being built.

Partly, that was perhaps because the methods for preserving/conserving didn't exist (other than deliberately burying things ). But, yes, the Victorians probably were the great Diggers-Up of Unconsidered Trifles. [But this suggests that antiquarianism has a very long history]

[Dave2002]

I'm sure we don't. And am happy for it to be left to posterity (rather than ideology) to decide what survives and what doesn't.

I don't think it's arrogance to hope or want one's work to survive longer than 'l'espace d'un matin'.

Up to a point. We lived for a while in California, and there were very few older buildings. The Californians seemed to have a very unsentimental way of getting rid of older buildings which they didn't like much in order to create space for newer ones. Perhaps unfortunately that means someone has to make a value judgement on what goes. On the other hand, they didn't get bogged down with vast tracts of poor quality buildings blocking new development, which is or has been a problem in the UK.

It might be a good idea to keep a few representative examples, but not necessarily whole blocks of poor quality houses.

Other examples which have gone wrong though are (1) parts of Stockholm - about which I know fairly little, but apparently the city council made a value judgement that some parts were of little historical value in the 1960s, and had them razed - and now people seem to think that was a really bad idea, and there is also (2) Leipzig city council which blasted one of the churches which Bach had been responsible for - heaven knows why! It had only been there for around 1000 years.

[Anastasius]

Is there indeed? (although "much" should surely read "many" if indeed it's to be read at all?) Do you know who funds and runs this school? It sounds even worse than the much better known Viennese Secondary School...

Sometimes I think that a sense of humour has passed some people by.

[french frank]

It might be a good idea to keep a few representative examples, but not necessarily whole blocks of poor quality houses.

As long as 'posterity' judges that they are of 'poor quality', I suppose it can be assumed that they won't be valued, and therefore won't be preserved anyway.

[MrGongGong]

It might be a good idea to keep a few representative examples, but not necessarily whole blocks of poor quality houses.

not always a new issue

http://www.ideal-homes.org.uk/lambeth/lambeth-assets/galleries/streatham/lonesome

[mercia]

I don't know whether this is relevant but apparently the Palace of Westminster needs £3billion+ spent on it in repairs - is that money that could be better spent perhaps bulldozing Barry's Gothic and letting a young architect be uninhibitively (uninhibitedly?) creative ?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I don't know whether this is relevant but apparently the Palace of Westminster needs £3billion+ spent on it in repairs - is that money that could be better spent perhaps bulldozing Barry's Gothic and letting a young architect be uninhibitively (uninhibitedly?) creative ?

Oh,yes, please, please, PLEASE!!! Hideous building, great monstrous lump - foul, foul, foul.

[MrGongGong]

Oh,yes, please, please, PLEASE!!! Hideous building, great monstrous lump - foul, foul, foul.

Buckingham Palace can also go while they are at it

[jean]

Sometimes I think that a sense of humour has passed some people by.

I thought his was in rather better shape than yours.

[Richard Barrett]

Buckingham Palace can also go while they are at it

In a weird inversion of the way these things are usually done. the "Palast der Republik" in Berlin, a rather beautiful edifice which housed the government of the DDR, has been demolished (instead of, say, being converted into a cultural centre and/or studio complex of some kind, which would have been easy to do given its structure, in order to make room for... a replica of the turgid old Prussian eyesore which was there before it (and was destroyed in the Second World War).

I do think humanity is diminished by the destruction of ancient sites carried out by IS. Not of course anything like as much as it is diminished by their brutality against human beings. And let's not forget that elsewhere in Iraq, ancient Mesopotamian sites were levelled by the US Army twelve years ago to act as helicopter landing areas.

[Richard Barrett]

I thought his was in rather better shape than yours.

Not much in it though.

[jean]

I don't think it's muddled.

It isn't. All iconoclasm, whether it's perpetrated by the Byzantine Orthodox of the C8 - C9, or the Western Puritans of the C17, or the Moslems of whatever era, owes its inspiration to Exodus 20 and the ban on making any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

[MrGongGong]

I do think humanity is diminished by the destruction of ancient sites carried out by IS. Not of course anything like as much as it is diminished by their brutality against human beings. And let's not forget that elsewhere in Iraq, ancient Mesopotamian sites were levelled by the US Army twelve years ago to act as helicopter landing areas.

[Flosshilde]

Fully accept and loathe the nastiness outlined, but might the difference be that ISIS / -al-Shabab / Boko Haram et al specifically and quite deliberately and systematically single out non-Muslims to massacre. Not sure even the appalling Crusaders murdered all Jews, or all Muslims they came across, did they? ISIS apparently do, but can allow converts to live.

I don't know if it's perpetrated by IS or not, but there is plenty of Muslim/Muslim violence. And IS aren't the only Muslims destroying artefacts - look at what's happening at Mecca.