“… Old buildings are not ours. They belong, partly to those who built them, and partly to the generations of mankind who are to follow us. The dead still have their right in them: That which they labored for … we have no right to obliterate.” “What we ourselves have built, we are at liberty to throw down. But what other men gave their strength, and wealth, and life to accomplish, their right over it does not pass away with their death …”
by John Ruskin 1849, “The Seven Lamps of Architecture” chapter 6
