I like ruins. They provide a look at how people lived in the past, and their incompleteness imparts mystery. So it's a good thing to live in Mexico because there are so many here.

Ruined arches I find particularly intriguing because they show disintegration suspended. The arc of stone reaches out, but to where? And for how much longer before erosion wins and collapse becomes complete?

This crumbling wall is part of the stonework that housed the mill after which El Charco del Ingenio was named.

For me, part of the charm of this arch is because no one has tried to restore, or to even preserve it. It is what it is. Authentic.

One problem with ruins, though, is they're often not where you want them. Maybe you want to create a faux hacienda out in the Golden Corridor, on the highway to Delores Hidalgo. What could give a more immediate sense of antiquity than a broken arch?

Their artful appearance makes them popular. You see them all over Mexico, wherever someone wants to evoke the image of a simpler age: of courtly haciendados giving employment to campesinos, of brown-robed sacerdotes uplifting heathen Indian hearts.

I guess they look nice, sort of like a federal-style façade pasted onto the front of a McMansion in a Boston suburb.