Last week, we visited one of the biggest and oldest abbeys in northern France. Three monks founded the first Benedictine abbey along the River in the 7th century. Ruins like this abbey often brought me great pleasure. A testament to the triumph of architectural creativity over time.
Yet now I can’t help but think of recent war-torn buildings, eternal reminders of humanity’s limitless creative violence.
When do bombed sites qualify as “ruins”? Is it when they cease to be painfully real?
