Iconic Architecture and Regeneration: The Form is the Function

Put me on the map, give my industrial city a second chance, make me the centrefold of the Sunday supplements, the cover of in-flight magazines, the backdrop for fashion shoots, give me an iconic landmark, give me – architectural – shock and awe. Charles Jencks, Iconic Buildings: The Power of Enigma (2004), 18. Introduction Political agencies' recent embrace of what has come to be known as ‘iconic’ architecture can be understood as a continuation of longstanding attempts to mobilize major building projects, first, to materialize wider discourses of major social change, and second, to generate surplus value from urban space. The desire to commission sufficiently persuasive and socially resonant architectural forms with which to attract various forms of mobile capital – especially from the private sector and tourism – while at the same time symbolizing an upward trajectory for a place, has seen iconic architecture incorporated enthusiastically into UK cultural policy strategies. The ‘visually consumable’ (Urry 2002) nature of such attention- grabbing buildings, allied to a hope that iconic forms will help create instantly recognizable ‘brand images’ for places, has led Charles Jencks to claim a renewed function for statement architecture. He has observed that in ‘the last ten years a new type of architecture has emerged. Driven by social forces, the demand for instant fame and economic growth, the expressive landmark has challenged the previous tradition of the architectural monument’ (2004: 7).