Iconicity versus Contemporary Architecture

Author: Ehab Nasr & Alaa Mandour (Helwan University, Cairo) Year: 2024 (Global Built Environment Review 9(3), 3–18) Source type: article Raw file: raw/articles/nasr-mandour-2024-iconicity-versus-contemporary-architecture.md

Summary

Nasr and Mandour analyze what qualifies a building as "iconic," considering iconicity as a symbolic, phenomenological, and place-making quality. Following Jencks and Norberg-Schulz, they examine icons through four dimensions — identity and culture, memory, meaning, and place — and compare case studies (the Pyramids of Giza, Sydney Opera House, Burj Al Arab, Guggenheim Bilbao). They also critique the collapsing of "iconic" into gimmick/commodified "signature architecture," and call for requalifying the term for buildings that are functional, contextual, and culturally meaningful.

Key Claims

Defining the icon: the icon is an aesthetic/symbolic sign (Morris: "the aesthetic sign is an iconic sign whose design is a value"); iconicity "reflects the increasing commodification of the profession and its marginalization within society … architecture's shift from serving the public good to serving private interests." Jencks: "an iconic building is created to make a splash, to make money."
Four dimensions of iconicity: identity and culture (icons "form the collective culture," symbolize society's identity and history); memory (icons "affect the collective memory" and the memory of place); meaning (icons carry cultural, symbolic, and message content); and place (icons "exemplify place making," create the distinctive aspect of a site, and "reverberate human life" — a phenomenological relation).
Iconicity across history: from the pyramids and the Seven Wonders to Palladio, Wren, Wright, Le Corbusier, Mies, Utzon's Opera House, the Eiffel Tower — icons signal cultural and civilizational depth and technological innovation.
The critique of signature architecture: post-modern "signature architects or starchitects monopolize short lists" and "sometimes build edifices that don't seem to address programmatic or functional needs very well"; "Iconic has become identical with crazy caps on high rise buildings."
Requalifying "iconic": "It is time to re-suitable the word iconic for the purpose for which it was firstly anticipated" — "entrenched architecture which is gorgeous, efficient, a welcome appendage to the communal and physical surroundings, and a commendable evidence to the culture of its time."
Norberg-Schulz: the sign "fixes the environment to organize a surrounding," expressing manners, socio-culture, tradition and history; environmental organization has physical, social, and cultural aspects.

Connections

Concepts: Iconic Architecture · Star Architecture · Atmosphere · Spectacle Authors: Ehab Nasr & Alaa Mandour · Charles Jencks · Christian Norberg-Schulz Debates: Spectacle vs. Function Related source notes: The Iconic Building Is Here to Stay (Jencks) · Genius Loci (Norberg-Schulz)

Direct Quotes

"[I]conic buildings are not only symbols of creativity and originality … they are so much more than structures."

"[T]he issue of iconicity … reflects the increasing commodification of the profession and its marginalization within society."

"Iconic has become identical with crazy caps on high rise buildings."

"It is time to re-suitable the word iconic for the purpose for which it was firstly anticipated."

Open Questions

Does the requalification of "iconic" (contextual, functional, culturally meaningful) offer a usable normative standard, or is it a curricular/educational ideal given the continued dominance of star-architecture and commodified iconicity?