Ruin in Reverse: A Sociological Approach to Investigating the Museum Preservation of Robin Hood Gardens Part 2 Dissertation 2022 Lynsey Hogarth University of Bath | UK In 2018, a fragment of Robin Hood Gardens sparked political controversy in the press when it was exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale. The Victoria and Albert Museum’s acquisition of the former social housing estate represented a contradiction to the conclusion that the estate was of unworthy quality to be listed, providing further support that the applicability of traditional conservation values becomes problematic when applied to post war architecture, particularly those connotating to age or architectural value. This paper aims to demonstrate the value of a more sociological approach to this dilemma in preservation discourse. It uses collective memory theory, specifically Halbwachs and Bachelard’s variations, to explore implicit interpretations of fragment’s physicality in light of both its media contention and selective preservation. The application of methodology aids to derive a series of social frameworks aligned to key events in the Estate’s lifetime, including the ambitions behind the Smithsons’ pivotal works, changes in the social housing rhetoric, its debated listing campaign and finally, a speculative piece on what this connotates to the present framework. Through this chronological analysis, it is concluded that the fragment’s physicality is reduced to a semantic contribution, representative of our current crisis of defining heritage. Lynsey Hogarth Tutor(s) Stephen Emmitt