Jurassic Park Ruins

MosaTrajectum is a Golf Resort with villas and apartments near the Spanish city of Murcia. The whole village is walled in by some pseudo ruins. It looks like the architect took his inspirations mainly from Jurassic Park.

Lovely Ruin Elements

Chelsea Market in Manhattan. A shopping mall and fruit market in Manhattan constructed 2006 in an old factory. There are a lot of elements quoting ruin and decay.

Ruinenberg Potsdam

Near Berlin lies the city of Potsdam the old residence of the former Prussian kings. Far enough from the noisy Berlin Frederick the Great constructed here his palace Sanssouci which is still the main tourist attraction.

To provide the fountains of the gardens with water a great tank was built in 1748 on a hill in front of the palace. So that the great king was not annoyed with the view of a banal tank the hill was decorated with a greek/roman folly ruin. Later in the 19th century when the taste had changed more to medieval ruins a Norman castle was added.

Greek/Roman temple


Norman castle with the tank in front

One small stone, one giant leap in ruin history

Probably it’s neither a nice photo nor an impressive ruin, nevertheless it is one of the most important buildings in the history of ruins.

It is the so called Ponte Ruinante (the ruined bridge) part of the Palazzo Barberini in Rome and probably designed by the Italian artist and architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680). The currently derelict bridge was already by Bernini constructed as a ruin with one of the vault stones looking as it was coming down. Bernini tried to imitate the ancient Roman ruins. As far as I know the Ponte Ruinante is maybe the first artificial ruin, the first folly ruin.

Lovely Ruin Decorations

In the 18th century ruins became fashionable as decorations in gardens and parks. These artificial ruins were called follies and should give the illusion of older traditions. First there were used classic Roman style ruins to represent a kind of bucolic Tuscan landscape. Later the taste changed more to gothic ruins looking like medieval monasteries and castles.

So it shouldn't be surprising that in Great Britain, the homeland of garden architecture, still landscaping companies are offering garden follies.



To be serious, I was surprised indeed when I stumbled upon this website. But then I found it a good idea to offer these gothic walls to "provide a charming setting for quiet contemplation or even early evening cocktails".

Faked Roman Ruin

In the rococo garden of the Schwetzingen Palace in Germany can be seen the roman ruin of a temple of Mercury.


But it was neither roman nor a temple, it was already constructed as a ruin (between 1784 and 1787). The classical taste of that time loved roman ruins decorating a bucolic landscape.