Modern ruins is a neologism referring to ruins

Ruins

Ruins are the remains of human-made architecture: structures that were once complete, as time went by, have fallen into a state of partial or complete disrepair, due to lack of maintenance or deliberate acts of destruction...

 of architecture

Architecture

Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...

 constructed in the recent past, generally in the most recent century

Century

A century is one hundred consecutive years. Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages .-Start and end in the Gregorian Calendar:...

, or since the 19th century.

The term is most frequently used by people performing urban exploration

Urban exploration

Urban exploration is the examination of the normally unseen or off-limits parts of urban areas or industrial facilities. Urban exploration is also commonly referred to as infiltration, although some people consider infiltration to be more closely associated with the exploration of active or...

 of man-made architecture that is abandoned or no longer accessible to the general public

Public

In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individuals, and the public is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the Öffentlichkeit or public sphere. The concept of a public has also been defined in political science,...

, such as structures abandoned through the process of urban decay

Urban decay

Urban decay is the process whereby a previously functioning city, or part of a city, falls into disrepair and decrepitude...

. Enough documentation on these sites may have been lost over time that this unscientific exploration resembles archaeology

Archaeology

Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...

of ancient ruins in the methods used to collect information.