Inventing the Rural: A Brief History of Modern Architecture in the Countryside

The rural has long occupied a valuable, if under‐theorised position in modern architectural history. Here, Cole Roskam, Assistant Professor of Architectural History at the University of Hong Kong, highlights key moments in this history and, in doing so, illuminates a central paradox at the heart of architecture's various turns to the countryside; namely, can architects maintain the physical and social integrity of the rural when they are themselves a fundamental vector of its changing character?