A sense of place refers to the emotional and psychological connection you feel towards a specific location (Bo and Rani, 2025). It is the feeling and comfort of going home, a sense of belonging, an identity from experiencing a space that resonates with your values and memories and culture (Bo and Rani, 2025). Sometimes we don’t have people or family in our lives or an ideology that gives us a sense of belonging, sometimes we find our identity in a place to call home.
The Scottish Borders has architecture dating from the 12th century, influenced by medieval Scotland and the writings of Sir Walter Scott. It is a very special place, and the architecture evokes positive emotions, engaging people with their communities (Kingston Society, 2024). The symbols found in our architecture are complex and are not immediately clear to us but continue to create emotional connections for us (Kingston Society, 2024). What will letting our beautiful buildings fall into disrepair or be replaced with modernism do to our sense of place? Why are our buildings not being restored and protected? How many meeting places such as our pubs, libraries and church halls have been lost and defaced due to the slow march of modernism since the 1950s? What exactly is the Utopian goal that modern architecture is moving us towards? In the Scottish Borders do we not already have the architectural utopian ideal? Is the loss of cohesion that modernism brings in our best interests?
Modern Globalised Architecture is not a style, instead it is an ideological top-down rejection of our cultural past aiming to change our sense of community and belonging, with soulless alienating, zombie spaces (Kingston Society, 2024). Modernism aims to radically change the emotional and symbolic needs of the people, leaving us with no meaningful alternative to return to (Kingston Society, 2024). According to Haussmann, Modernism is cultural tyranny, and institutions are using a perceived hierarchy of values such as rationalism and efficiency and a rejection of ornamentation as a kind of moral imperative to force this architectural radicalization on communities (Kingston Society, 2024). Restoring and renovating our existing buildings would seem to have the moral hierarchy of sustainability rather than the environmentally damaging choice of modern buildings. Where has the belief system, that new is always better come from? Modern architecture since1950, influenced by constructivism and social realism has been proven to not age well and has no longevity, unlike our 800 years of beautiful architecture set in rolling hills.
The goal of all regimes is to change the environment to serve their political or financial aims. By changing historical references and classic elements in architecture they can make the change permanent and irreversible (Sarp and lab, 2023). With centralizing planning, communities lose control and identity and self-determination (Sarp and Lab, 2023). All totalitarian regimes such as communism use architecture as a tool to promote their ideology and exert control, with standardized housing losing individualism and designing public spaces to reinforce the state’s power and shape citizens behaviour (Sarp and Lab, 2023). All new political regimes know they needed to erase the past to bring in their kind of new (Strauss, 2015). The cultural hero and archaeologist Khaled Asaad dedicated his life to protecting Syrian artifacts from ISIS militants (Strauss, 2015). Assad was executed, deemed immoral for preserving his cultural identity (Strauss, 2015). France understood the endurance of their culture through their architecture when they surrendered Paris to a fascist regime. Our architecture has the role of preserver of our collective memory and tradition in our culture. Buildings are not just physical structures they embody the values and beliefs of people who created them and inhabit them. The Marxist Rudi Dutschke in the 1960s coined the phrase “the long march through the institutions” as the intellectual and cultural stealth takeover of a society without the need to resort to military conflict (Renew, 2021).
The Scottish Borders has taken centuries to create but can be torn down in a moment, whose needs and desires does modernism serve?
References
Bo, L. and Rani, A. (2025). The Value of Current Sense of Place in Architectural Heritage Studies: A Systematic Review. Buildings, 15(6), pp.903–903. doi:https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings15060903.
Kingston Society (2024). The tyranny of modern architecture: why we hate it and how styles like London Vernacular complicate the debate. [online] Kingston upon Thames Society. Available at: https://kts.org.uk/kingstons-riverside-new-indoor-spaces-thrive-but-gloomy-walkway-still-lags-behind/ [Accessed 4 Dec. 2024].
Renew (2021). The Long March through the Institutions of Society. [online] Renew. Available at: https://renew.org/the-long-march-through-the-institutions-of-society/.
Strauss, M. (2015). Archaeologist’s Execution Highlights Risks to History’s Guardians. [online] Adventure. Available at: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/article/150820-syria-archaeologist-isis-protecting-artifacts.
Sarp and Lab (2023). Pillars of Power: The Role of Architecture in Enforcing Communist Ideology in Albania – SARP AND LAB. [online] SARP AND LAB – SARP AND LAB. Available at: https://sarpandlab.al/pillars-of-power-the-role-of-architecture-in-enforcing-communist-ideology-in-albania/ [Accessed 17 Jul. 2025].