ABSTRACT
When creators of buildings, tombs, and monuments anticipate and plan for their ultimate transition to ruins, they sometimes do so in ways that reflect aesthetic engagement and enhance the aesthetic valuation of their products. They may aim to impress on present imagination qualities of prior magnificence; they may inspire appreciation of the evanescent nature of all things; they may exemplify the life experience of the individual or of the community. In all of these ways they reveal a certain beauty in the inevitable ruination that connects our lives with the lives of everything around us.
