Lost Art: should we rebuild sacked castles and ruined palaces?

Noah Charney: The Art Newspaper

The world is full of visible palaces, castles and manor houses, but there is a danger that we could forget some of mankind’s most impressive creations that were destroyed, and many of them needlessly. It is one thing to look at a ruin and try to reconstruct what it once looked like; whatever stone fragments remain are a reminder of what once was there. The greatest difficulty is when something was razed to the ground, and no above-ground relic remains to remind us that a structure was ever there at all.

Such architecture was most often destroyed in times of war. Castles, in particular, were instruments of war and occupying or levelling them was the goal of invading armies. In many cases, the castles were then taken over by the victors and re-purposed, but many were dismantled, particularly when the structure could no longer repel attacks by cannon. This is easier to understand than the willful and seemingly unnecessary destruction of palaces by invading or sometimes resident forces. …Read More