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Ruins are representative of European values and illustrative of European history and heritage and our aim should be to raise awareness of this heritage in order to create a stronger identification with Europe and a further European integration as well. While people are living in and around World Heritage sites, their role in heritage processes and management has changed considerably. Nowadays we must connect the conservation goals with the objective of smart, inclusive and sustainable growth. Local communities must be encouraged to use their local cultural assets as a springboard through a process whereby local actors, are encouraged to assume an active stewardship over the heritage and are empowered develop that heritage in a responsible, profitable and sustainable manner. In their evocative and fascinating image, ruins must be returned to the contemporary life from which they often appear, instead, dramatically separated. Interventions on ruins appear difficult and risky, on the boundary line between archaeological and architectural restoration. The contemporary architectural interventions on the ruin oscillate from conservation to reintegration, up to the absolute extremism consisting in the reconstruction, considered acceptable and suitable only if based on the contemporary design that, from the knowledge of the history, leads to a creative and modern form and image of the architectural work.

Owners and managers of the thousands of medieval ruins around Europe face the challenge of preservation despite limited options for modern use of their sites. The RUINS project develops approaches that help managers to find contemporary, social uses for old ruins while keeping historical heritage intact. Research and evaluation of various sites will create a basis for comprehensive management plans. A lack of functionality of medieval ruins leaves limited opportunities for establishing a viable economic future of these sites. Giving new functions to ruins can result in broad, economically profitable ways of using the medieval ruins. The aim is finding the balance between the needs of stakeholders and public expectations concerning use of medieval ruins on one hand, and on the other hand preservation of authenticity and historical value of medieval ruins. The individuation of the new function requires a specific knowledge of the building in all its aspects, but also considerations regarding socio-economic values of the context that identifies its historical meaning and artistic value. The approach is to find new aims to monuments, but in harmony with the characteristics that give value and meaning to them. Within the INTERREG Central Europe project RUINS, is developing an handbook that supplies an operational tool useful to guide owners and managers of the thousands of medieval ruins around Europe toward a stainable re-use, preservation and modern management of historical ruins. The work follows an outline composed by 5 chapters that will try to respond in an exhaustive way to the aims related to contemporary use of historical ruins.