This article argues something that I have often tried to explain – that without their context, artworks lose their meaning. Nowhere is this more the case, than with the Parthenon Sculptures. These works were always designed to be seen on the Acropolis – they formed an integral part of the building & were specifically designed to tell a story as a visitor moved past the building.

From:
Los Angeles Times

Critic’s Notebook: Remove art from its architectural context, and what’s left?
The cases of a reputed Banksy piece in Detroit and Le Corbusier’s work in Chandigarh, India, raise complicated questions.
March 12, 2011|By Christopher Hawthorne, Los Angeles Times Architecture Critic

When we debate the endlessly tricky subjects of cultural patrimony and looted art, the pieces that usually come to mind are marble statues from classical antiquity or paintings stolen and stashed away during wartime. Not street art. And certainly not manhole covers.

But thanks to Banksy, the elusive London-based artist, as well as fresh questions about the fate of Chandigarh, the Indian city designed in the 1950s by Modernist architect Le Corbusier, preparatory notes for a new chapter in this long story have shown up in the press in recent days.
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