Abstract
This text investigates from a phenomenological and aesthetical point of view the term "Kultur" in western societies in the 20th and 21st century. I ask the question why - or why not - one can ask the question, if there is a value of culture and what are the parameters we use to "measure" the value of culture. I investigate the change of the perception and assessment of the phenomena, we call cultural objects, including architecture. Finally I confront the terminus "cultural value" with the aura-thesis of Walter Benjamin and the idea of "the sublime" Edmund Burke developed in the 19th century. Both philosophers described the value of art pieces as something immaterial and so the final question is, if one could define currency of the immateriality of individual perception.