One of the questions that has most bothered me in my reflections on culture is the question of kitsch. Just what is it? When did it begin? And why?
Roger ScrutonRead
Modernist buildings exclude dialogue, and the void that they create around themselves is not a public space but a desertification
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote critiques modernist architecture for isolating itself and failing to foster public interaction.
Roger Scruton argues that modernist buildings often create an atmosphere of exclusion, leading to spaces that do not invite dialogue or community engagement. Instead of becoming lively public areas where relationships can flourish, these structures contribute to a sense of emptiness and desolation, making the surroundings feel more like a desert than an accessible and welcoming environment.
Themes
ArchitectureModernismPublic SpaceDialogueDesign
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about urban planning, this quote can be used to emphasize the importance of creating inviting public spaces.
More from Roger Scruton
All quotes →There are big questions science doesn't answer, such as why is there something rather than nothing? There can't be a scientific answer to that because it's the answer that precedes science.
Roger ScrutonRead
18th century opera is packed with emotion, but contains not a trace of kitsch. Only with the 'thees' and 'thous' of Victorian poetry does the disease begin to grow in our poetic tradition.
Roger ScrutonRead
The robust English view used to be that the correct response to offensive words is to ignore them, or to answer them with a rebuke. If you invoke the law at all, it should be to protect the one who gives the offence, and not the one who takes it. Now, it seems, it is all the other way round.
Roger ScrutonRead
For two centuries the English countryside has been an icon of national identity and the loved reminder of our island home. Yet the government is bent on littering the hills with wind turbines and the valleys with high speed railways.
Roger ScrutonRead
You cannot own a symphony or a novel in the way you can own a Damien Hirst. As a result there are far fewer fake symphonies or fake novels than there are fake works of visual art.
Roger ScrutonRead
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I'm particularly interested in the public role that all buildings play. I believe that we architects should try to go beyond our basic obligations to the public, and our opportunities to do so are many.
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I would like to use architecture to create bonds between people who live in cities, and even use it to recover the communities that used to exist in every single city.
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All buildings, large or small, public or private, have a public face, a facade; they therefore, without exception, have a positive or negative effect on the quality of the public realm, enriching or impoverishing it in a lasting and radical manner. The architecture of the city and public space is a matter of common concern to the same degree as laws and language—they are the foundation of civility and civilisation.
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