ruins in the city

on the edge of miraflores, lima, heading towards san isidro is the Huaca Pucllana, a group of pre-Colombian ruins sitting nearby modern blocks of flats and the houses and schools of the peruvian well-off. the site, dating from 200-500AD, was a ceremonial site and is comprised of adobe bricks joined with a mud cement.

Huaca Pucllana is a fine example of the precarious relationship between the city and ruins. on the one hand, the site is what the city is not. the dry and dusty area creates a desert within the city, its difference exaggerated by the railings that form the perimeter and which place the Huaca beyond the pale. the ruins, a place to venerate, to protect, to unearth brick by brick as the city around it is being built upon brick by brick, are excluded from the city. on the other, however, the Huaca is a reminder of what the city was, what it will become and, thus, what is already is: a ruin.

the city can never exclude ruination, can never push the ruin beyond its boundaries for it is constantly decaying, whether at the hands of earthquakes or the planner's wrecking ball.