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analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action

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Iconic architecture as a hegemonic project of the

transnational capitalist class

Leslie Sklair & Laura Gherardi

To cite this article: Leslie Sklair & Laura Gherardi (2012) Iconic architecture as
a hegemonic project of the transnational capitalist class, City, 16:1-2, 57-73, DOI:
10.1080/13604813.2012.662366

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2012.662366

Published online: 23 Apr 2012.

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CITY, VOL. 16, NOS. 1 – 2, FEBRUARY – APRIL 2012

Iconic architecture as a
hegemonic project of the
transnational capitalist class
Leslie Sklair and Laura Gherardi

Identifying the drivers of actually existing capitalist globalization as the transnational

capitalist class, this paper suggests that theory and research on its agents and institutions
could help us to explain how the dominant forms of contemporary iconic architecture
arise and how they serve the interests of globalizing capitalists. We define iconic architecture
in terms of buildings and/or spaces that are famous, and that have distinctive symbolic and
aesthetic significance. The historical context of the research is the thesis that the production
and representation of architectural icons in the pre-global era (roughly before the 1960s)
were mainly driven by those who controlled state and/or religious institutions, whereas
the dominant forms of architectural iconicity in the global era are increasingly driven by
those who own and control the corporate sector. The argument is illustrated with reference
to debates around the politics of monumentality in architecture; the relationship between
iconic architecture and capitalist globalization; and an explanation of why these debates
are being overtaken by critical and uncritical conceptions of architectural iconicity
derived from an analysis of the use of iconicity and similar terms in the discourses of
major architecture and architect – developer firms and mass media presentations of their
work.

Key words: iconic architecture, transnational capitalist class, starchitects

I
t has long been recognized by scholars
and interested publics alike that architec-
ture has been used to transmit and
reinforce the power of the strong over the
weak and up until the middle of the 20th
century such ideas were discussed largely in
terms of the role of monumentality in archi-
tecture. However, since the end of the
Second World War and the defeat of the
fascist dictatorships in Europe the discussion
has moved on to new ground. Bombastic
monumentality, while not entirely aban-
doned, has become more and more
discredited as an architectural strategy for
those in power. The breakup of the Soviet
empire in the 1990s and the creation of new
regimes in post-Soviet Eastern Europe
added some further, often contradictory,
elements to the debate. Gradually, with
increasing pace in recent decades, architec-
tural iconicity has begun to replace monu-
mentality as the central motif in these
discussions. Interest in architectural icons
has blossomed in recent years. Theory
and research from geographers, historians
and sociologists as well as urban and

ISSN 1360-4813 print/ISSN 1470-3629 online/12/01– 20057– 17 # 2012 Taylor & Francis
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2012.662366
58 CITY VOL. 16, NOS. 1– 2
architectural theorists has started to raise
questions around the origins, structure,
dynamics and significance of iconicity in
architecture. At around the same time,
architect and critic Charles Jencks, geogra-
phers Maria Kaika and Donald McNeill,
urbanists Carola Hein and K.C. Ho, histor-
ians Philip Ethington and Vanessa Schwartz,
and sociologists Leslie Sklair and Steven
Miles all wrote explicitly on architectural
icons. Jencks’ book, The Iconic Building
(2005), put forward the idea of the architec-
tural icon as an enigmatic signifier from the
point of view of the architectural insider.1
Maria Kaika (with the architect Korinna
Thielen) co-edited a special issue of this
journal in 2006, with further contributions
from Jencks, Sklair, McNeill, Hein and Ho
(see Kaika and Thielen, 2006). Kaika followed
this up with research on iconic architecture
and the City of London (2010) and McNeill’s
book, The Global Architect, appeared in 2009.
Miles (2005) explored the role of iconic archi-
tecture in urban regeneration in England.
On the other side of the Atlantic, Ethington
and Schwartz (2006) edited a special issue of
Urban History, with contributions on
urban icons in Rome, Jerusalem, Venice,
Berlin and Shanghai. These are mostly his-
torical studies but there is some discussion
of the fruitfulness of semiotic interpretations
of the iconic.2
In a series of articles (Sklair, 2005, 2006b,
2010) an attempt has been made to develop a
sociological framework for the analysis of
iconic architecture in the era of capitalist glo-
balization. This paper sets out to show how
members of the transnational capitalist
class—the drivers of capitalist globaliza-
tion—promote iconic architecture over monu-
mentality as a marker of their hegemony. This
opens up new lines of inquiry on the perennial
problem of explaining how the built environ-
ment can be manipulated in the interests of a
dominant class. Here we raise a series of ques-
tions about the relationship between iconic
building and iconic practice, the emergence
of starchitects in contrast with the corporate
practices of the biggest architecture firms,
and their different understanding of iconicity
(see Ponzini and Nastasi 2011).
Monumentality and hegemony
In what is certainly one of the most authori-
tative and influential histories of architecture
in the 20th century we find the following
declaration: ‘Throughout history, monumen-
tal architecture has been employed to
embody the values of dominant ideologies
and groups, and as an instrument of state pro-
paganda’ (Curtis, 1996, p. 351). In the chapter
of which this is the opening sentence, ‘Totali-
tarian Critiques of the Modern Movement’,
Curtis shows that there are some exceptions
to the conventional accounts of architecture
in Nazi Germany, Communist Russia and
Fascist Italy as chauvinist, debased and
worthless (he, and many others, cite the
Italian Terragni as the main exception,
notably his modernist Casa del Fascio in
Como of 1936). Nevertheless, Curtis argues,
totalitarian critiques of the modern move-
ment had a point. In his contribution to a
special issue of the Harvard Architecture
Review, the celebrated art historian and
leading proponent of the Modern Movement
Siegfried Giedion (1984) gave expression to
the view that a new form of democratic mon-
umentality was necessary for the post-war
world.3 Curtis, significantly, chooses to illus-
trate this argument with reference to the
work of Louis Kahn, whose National Assem-
bly Building in Dacca (1962– 75) was the
crowning achievement of this phase of demo-
cratic monumental architectural (Curtis,
1996, chap. 28). Curtis is led to the conclusion
that: ‘Monumentality is a quality in architec-
ture which does not necessarily have to do
with size, but with intensity of expression’
(p. 514).4
Smith, in his comparison of the architec-
tures of Barcelona in the periods of the 1888
Universal Exhibition and the Olympics of
1992, argues that while the former was
mainly about Catalan nationalism, the latter
was much more about Barcelona as a global

city. He makes the explicit connection
between monumentality and iconicity as
follows: ‘the contemporary obsession with
iconic buildings can be interpreted as the
latest attempt by cities to use monumentality
as a way of affirming and displaying capital
status . . . [today] tourism objectives are
often the prime justification for these new
monumental strategies’ (Smith, 2007, p. 82).
While he makes the perfectly valid point
that contemporary icons operate as symbols
of communication, he fails, in our view, to
see that it is not only in the terms of form
that monuments of the pre-global era differ
from architectural icons of the global era,
but crucially in terms of the class that drives
their production and representation and it is
to this topic that we now turn.5
The transition from monumentality to
iconicity in architecture
Our line of argument derives in part from the
vast literature on globalization and the many
competing approaches jostling for primacy.6
Any attempt to present a definitive account
of ‘globalization and architecture’ (or any-
thing else) is doomed to failure. Here we
argue for a specific conception of globaliza-
tion (see Sklair, 2002) and how this works
for what can be labelled architectural icons.
The general approach identifies the drivers
of actually existing capitalist globalization as
the transnational capitalist class (TCC)—
some of whose members are certainly
inspired by neoliberalism—and suggests
how theory and research on the agents and
institutions of the TCC could help us to
explain how the dominant forms of contem-
porary iconic architecture arise and how
they serve the interests of globalizing capital-
ists, thus iconic architecture as a hegemonic
project of the TCC. The historical context
of the research is the thesis that the pro-
duction and representation of architectural
icons in the pre-global era (roughly before
the 1960s) were mainly driven by those who
controlled state and/or religious institutions,
SKLAIR AND GHERARDI: ICONIC ARCHITECTURE 59
whereas the dominant forms of architectural
iconicity for the global era are increasingly
driven by those who own and control the
corporate sector and the central institutions
of capitalist globalization. Iconicity in archi-
tecture, therefore, can best be conceptualized
as a resource in struggles for meaning and, by
implication, for power.
The drivers of capitalist globalization can
be characterized as the TCC, conceptualized
in four fractions. As in many other industries,
there is often an important overlap between
the four fractions of the TCC in architecture.
(1) Those who own and/or control the
major transnational corporations and
their local affiliates (corporate fraction).
In architecture, these are the people
who own and/or control the major archi-
tectural, architecture – engineering and
architecture – developer – real estate
firms and their clients. They are of two,
minimally overlapping, types: first, the
biggest of these firms (of whom only a
few are truly transnational), and second,
the most celebrated and famous architec-
tural firms. While some of the most cele-
brated iconic architects do not actually
own their practices they usually control
them and provide the cultural capital
that gives them their value in the market-
place.
No corporation in the architecture
industry in 2010 had a turnover exceed-
ing US$300 million and employed many
more than 1000 architects. In comparison
with the major global corporations they
are small (to gain entry to the Fortune
Global 500 currently requires revenues
approaching US$20 billion with the top
echelon bringing in hundreds of billions
and employing hundreds of thousands).
As we shall see below, few of the top
100 architectural firms by revenues are
led by iconic architects or build iconic
buildings. The cultural importance of
celebrated architects, especially in cities,
far outweighs their relative lack of finan-
cial and corporate muscle. Table 1 lists
60 CITY VOL. 16, NOS. 1– 2

Table 1 Top 10 firms from BD Top 100 (2005– 2009) the public in architecture who are
allied, through choice or circumstance,
Fee-earning
architects; fee
with globalizing corporations and the
income (2008) Years in agenda of capitalist globalization.
Firm in US$ top 10 (4) Merchants, media and advertising (con-
1. Gensler 1216; $250m + All
sumerist fraction). These are the people
2. HOK 1205; $250m + All who are responsible for the marketing
3. Nikken Sekkei 1174; $250m + All of architecture in all its manifestations
4. Aedas 1020; $200m + All but 2005 and whose main task is to connect the
5. Foster 913; $180m + All but 2006 architecture industry with the culture –
6. SOM 838; $230m + All
ideology of consumerism by promoting
7. BDP 717; $130m + All
8. RMJM 709; $110m + 2008–2009 images of iconic buildings, spaces and
9. HKS 651; $190m + All but 2005 architects in mass and specialized
10. Atkins 622; $140m + Only 2008 media using all the available dynamic
discourses of celebrity cultures.
Sources: Building Design, World Architecture Online Top
100 (2008), for 2008 data; Building Design (20 November
2009, pp. 24 –25) for 2005– 2009 data. The point of this discussion of the TCC is to
suggest that, as well as the aesthetics of build-
ings and spaces, the specific connections
the top 10 firms for 2008 and the number between the four fractions of the TCC and
of years between 2005 and 2009 in which the production and representation of iconic
each firm has been in the top 10. As will architecture are also important in under-
be clear from the table, eight of the top standing and explaining architectural iconi-
10 in 2008 had been in the list for at city in the global era (elaborated in more
least four of the five sample years, detail in Sklair, 2005). Therefore, while most
suggesting that the dominant firms of the publicity and public relations activity
make up a very stable group.7 for iconic buildings focuses on the starchi-
(2) Globalizing politicians and bureaucrats tects credited with the design, and to a
(state fraction). These are the politicians lesser extent the client with the ambition to
and bureaucrats at all levels of adminis- fund the project, we argue that much more
trative power and responsibility, in com- scholarly attention should be paid to all
munities, cities, states and international four fractions of the TCC, without whom
and global institutions who serve the such buildings would rarely be built.
interests of capitalist globalization as
well as or in opposition to those who
elect or appoint them. They decide The manufacture of iconicity
what gets built where, and how changes
to the built environment are regulated. We define iconic architecture in terms of
They are particularly important for buildings and/or spaces that are famous, and
issues of preservation and urban plan- that have distinctive symbolic and aesthetic
ning, and in competitions for major pro- significance. Architecture can be iconic for
jects, some of which result in the creation architects and those in and around architec-
of what are known as architectural icons. ture, and/or for the general public (iconic for
(3) Globalizing professionals (technical whom?), at the local/urban, national and/or
fraction). The members of this fraction the global level (iconic for where?) and, in
range from those leading technicians our formulation, for the pre-global and/or
centrally involved in the structural fea- for the global era, roughly from the middle
tures of new building to those respon- of the 20th century (iconic for when?). Iconi-
sible for the education of students and city in architecture (or indeed in any other

field of endeavour) does not simply happen, it
is the end result—permanent or temporary—
of many deliberate practices. In a series of
interviews carried out in the USA, Europe
and elsewhere over the last decade8 it was
established that those in and around architec-
ture often remember the local icons of their
childhood, as well as national and global
icons, brought to their attention not only by
their teachers, but also by the professional
media of architecture and the general coverage
of cultural news in the mass media. In recent
decades, hugely facilitated by the Internet,
architect and architect – developer firms have
increasingly taken a leading role in endowing
their own buildings and spaces (and, in some
cases, themselves) with the quality of iconi-
city. They attempt to manufacture their own
iconicity, sometimes with a high degree of
success.
Jencks argues that the construction of
iconic meaning is tied to a postmodern
absence of strong belief in any metanarrative,
ideology or religion: ‘Given the desire of
society and architects to have great icons
and yet not to agree on any iconography,
they will inevitably produce enigmatic signif-
iers of varying quality’ (2005, p. 196). Iconic
buildings, in this perspective, emerge, on the
one side, from the crisis of the monument—
that, in an agnostic and global age, can be
divisive—and from the erosion of public
symbolism. On the other side, icons con-
sidered as cathedrals of consumerism and/or
temples of tourism, satisfy market demand
for enigmatic signifiers with naturalistic ana-
logies fulfilling the desire for a democratic
open interpretation. Metaphors connecting
buildings and natural elements become
more and more common. For example,
Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao has
been identified by different critics as a meta-
phor of a swan, a duck, an artichoke, a ship, a
woman sleeping and so on. The manufacture
of meaning can be fruitfully traced back to
Edward Bernays, the father of the Public
Relations industry and the nephew of
Sigmund Freud (see Ewen, 1996). Bernays’
idea of ‘the engineering of consent’ perfectly
SKLAIR AND GHERARDI: ICONIC ARCHITECTURE 61
sums up the way in which the manufacture
of iconicity in architecture works for the
built environment as a special case of the
celebrity culture under the conditions of
capitalist globalization.
The attribution of iconicity by the major
transnational architect and architect–developer
firms can be measured by a survey of their
websites. An analysis of the presence of the
terms ‘icon’ and ‘iconic’ in the websites of the
top 10 architectural firms reveals that these
terms appear in all their websites and, in
addition, some websites also discuss iconic
architecture directly. This permits us to deduce
both the attitudes towards iconicity of the
major firms in the industry and the modes of
their communication of iconicity. The terms
icon and iconic are mostly used without being
defined (as is the case in much of the academic
and architectural literature). In the case of the
firms this does not appear to be accidental, as
the terms are used in a self-evident fashion—
for example, ‘the world’s first mixed-use high-
rise, the John Hancock Centre [in Chicago,
built by SOM] is an architectural icon mirroring
the collaboration between architect Bruce
Graham and structural partner Fazlur Khan’
(www.som.com) (Figure 1).9 The context in
which the terms are used strongly suggests in
most cases that the meaning is positive; iconicity
is a quality that most if not all top firms are
claiming for their own buildings.
Corporate usage of and attitudes to
iconicity
Iconicity can refer to several different build-
ings of the same architectural firm, from
stadia to office towers, from mixed develop-
ments to museums, as will be evident from
the examples that follow, which are only a
sample of the multitude of the attributions
of iconicity in the websites analysed. Iconi-
city can also refer to an architectural
element of a building. Prominent examples
include: ‘The roof [of Wembley stadium by
HOK and Foster] is supported structurally
by a spectacular 135-metre-high arch that
62 CITY VOL. 16, NOS. 1– 2

Figure 1 The John Hancock building in Boston, self-proclaimed icon by the architects SOM
(Source: Leslie Sklair)

soars over the stadium, providing an iconic
replacement for the old building’s landmark
twin towers’ (www.fosterandpartners.com);
and for the Victoria Square scheme in
Belfast by Bdp (Figure 2), ‘The showpiece
of the project is the iconic 37m diameter
glass dome which sits on a 24m high circular
red sandstone colonnade’ (www.bdp.com).
The reference can also be to several archi-
tectural elements of the same building: ‘The
facade [of Tabira-cho Town Hall by Nikken
Sekkei] is the building icon made from
exposed steel reinforced concrete and vertical
curtain wall. There is an iconic penthouse
including meeting room and outdoor equip-
ment storage site on the top of the government
building’ (www.nikken.co.jp); as well as to a
cluster of buildings, ‘We designed three
iconic buildings: the country’s first IMAX
theatre; the Science Mall with hands-on
Figure 2 Belfast, Victoria Square
(Source: Nigel R. Clarke)
SKLAIR AND GHERARDI: ICONIC ARCHITECTURE 63
exhibition space, a planetarium, two theatres,
lab, café, shop, offices and workshops; and
Scotland’s tallest free-standing structure
[Glasgow Science Centre by Bdp]’ (www.
bdp.com). Furthermore, iconic can also refer
to the character of a building, for example:
‘This portion [the top of R&F Centre
Guangzhou by Aedas] is also where more
articulation takes place and reflects the
iconic character of the building both in the
day and night time’ (www.aedas.com); to the
silhouette of a building: ‘In design building
and landscape [of the Gas Science Museum,
Toyosu by Nikken Sekkei] are united in
such a manner as they look like a natural
land mound creating an iconic silhouette
when viewed from the other bank, which
leaves a deep impression to people’ (www.
nikken.co.jp) and to the shape of a building:
‘Al Sharq Tower [in Dubai, by SOM] is a
unique mix of an iconic form, ingenious struc-
ture, and spatial qualities of sky-high living’
(www.som.com). Multiple claims are made
for Iris Crystal Tower in Dubai by Aedas:
‘Its iconic form embodies a strong ecological
concept fitting for these demanding times
while providing its tenants with state of the
art, luxurious, first class commercial facilities’
and ‘Iconic, visionary design is at the heart of
Iris Crystal’s identity’ (www.aedas.com).
Even the architectural firm itself is self-pro-
claimed as iconic: ‘Atkins has been involved
in Kuwait since 1977 and over the last three
decades has developed a reputation for its
iconic design’ (www.atkinsdesign.com).10
Significant for the high importance of the
iconic in urban design are references to the
image of a building in the skyline of a city, for
example, on the Victoria Square scheme in
Belfast: ‘It is an intentional set-piece and has
already become an iconic image on Belfast’s
skyline’ (www.bdp.com) and, in a wider
sense, to the architectural image of a city: ‘the
project [West Kowloon Cultural District
Hong Kong by Foster & Partners] will conso-
lidate Hong Kong’s reputation as a cultural
destination while providing an iconic architec-
tural image for the city’ (www.fosterand
partners.com).11 It is common for several
64 CITY VOL. 16, NOS. 1– 2
buildings defined as iconic to coexist in the
same city: ‘As the most prominent icon on
the city’s skyline, [Gensler’s] Shanghai
Tower’s transparent spiral form will showcase
cutting-edge sustainable strategies and public
spaces that set a new standard for green com-
munity’ (www.gensler.com); so that there
appear to be different degrees of iconicity
(always without offering a definition of iconi-
city). Even more iconic, in terms of media cov-
erage, is the Jin Mao Tower (Figure 3): ‘At the
time of its completion, the 88-story, 1381-foot-
high SOM-designed Jin Mao Tower was
China’s tallest building and remains its most
iconic. Recalling historic Chinese pagoda
forms, Jin Mao has become a model for tower
designs throughout China’ (www.som.com).
See also Campanella (2008, chap. 2).12
If the individual icon expresses uniqueness,
the condition is not unique and, as we have
Figure 3 Jin Mao Tower, Shanghai, by SOM
(Source: Richard Mallinson)
seen, there can be several architectural icons
in a city and they can be from different eras
and for different audiences (local, national,
global). Contemporary globalizing cities
compete to accumulate manufactured icons
(among which some are successful, some are
not), sometimes one next to another, one
inside another, always according to the dis-
course of the websites analysed.
Numerous websites state explicitly that
market demand is the driver of this production
of iconicity: ‘The design [of Bothwell Plaza in
Glasgow by Aedas] aims to fulfil the Euro-
pean Development Company’s aspirations
for an architectural icon.’ In recent years
such production following the logic of the
newer iconic buildings overshadowing older
iconic buildings, has accelerated. This is
clearly expressed by Andrew Barraclough,
HOK International Director: ‘Nowadays,
architectural commissions generally need to
make statements; our clients are looking for
iconic, Landmark buildings’ (www.hok.
com). The main clients in the architectural
market of iconicity are corporations and the
cities themselves. Following a logic of terri-
torial marketing, the icon is an investment
repaid by the flow of people and profit that
the icon is expected to attract. Common cri-
tiques of iconic architecture concern the alien-
ation of the icon from the site/context where it
is built and that iconic buildings aim to attract
flows of investments and people, sometimes
with no connections to the site of construction
other than the economic activities induced
locally. The architectural icon can be
designed, and it actually is in a majority of
cases, for consumption that is not exclusively
local (possibly the whole world), thus for an
‘elsewhere’ where it is promoted by circulat-
ing its images over the media and by the narra-
tives that surround its design and
construction. Mass media make the decisive
contribution to global iconicity, promoting
it on a global scale often during the design
phase.13 The more ubiquitous the exposure
an icon receives the better, the architectural
icon has to be visible not only from as many
points of the city as possible14 and in its

skyline,15 but also on TV news, backgrounds
in TV programmes, newspaper and magazine
articles and films (see Figure 4).
Responding to the criticism of alienation of
the icon from its context, architecture firms
Figure 4 The ubiquitous Swiss Re building by Foster
(Source: John V. Keogh, www.JV21.com)
SKLAIR AND GHERARDI: ICONIC ARCHITECTURE 65
have drawn up what we may call a rhetoric
of the context: many buildings presented on
their websites are explicitly claimed to be
created for the city that hosts them. They
are said to be fitting to the time, place and
66 CITY VOL. 16, NOS. 1– 2
culture in which they are located, as in the
example of Liverpool FC Stadium by HKS
(see below). Further, almost all of the
visions of the firms in the top 10 state their
aim to improve people’s quality of life over
all the different contexts in which they
operate (globally).
However, the icon is an investment also for
the architectural firms that can increase their
fees by selling not only the structure of the
building, but also the identity of the city
created by the icon. For example: ‘This
iconic structure [San Francisco International
Airport—International Terminal by SOM]
creates a powerful identity for both the
airport and the City of San Francisco’
(www.som.com). The expression ‘production
of iconicity’, of which the first step is the lin-
guistic manufacture of the icon, is justified by
the fact that iconicity is a strategic answer to a
market demand and by the deliberate inten-
tion to build iconic buildings, most of the
time described as such even before the build-
ing is complete, sometimes when it exists
only on paper and a computer screen. The
Kowloon, Hong Kong example cited above
bears repetition here: ‘The project will conso-
lidate Hong Kong’s reputation as a cultural
destination while providing an iconic archi-
tectural image for the city’ (www.som.com)
(Figure 5).
This is one among many examples—also
from SOM: ‘The twisting, sculptural form
of Jinling Tower was designed to establish
an iconic presence in the heart of Nanjing’
(ibid.); ‘The design [Monterrey Tower by
HOK] was conceived as an abstract sculpture
and is intended to serve as an icon for the city’
(www.hok.com); and ‘It has been our ambi-
tion from the outset to produce an iconic
architecture [HKS Plans for Liverpool FC
Stadium] absolutely unique to the club’
(www.hksinc.com). In this sense, when
iconic identity can be delivered in the form
of a piece of architecture, iconicity may be
considered a product in itself. This appears
to be the implication of the following: ‘In
addition to delivering iconic identity, effi-
cient passenger organization and facilities
planning, Aedas has led the dramatic shift
in aviation planning’ (www.aedas.com).
Table 2 presents a snapshot of the presen-
tation of the manufacturing of iconicity in
the websites of the top 10 firms in the indus-
try as listed annually by the weekly publi-
cation Building Design (BD Top 10).
A first paradox emerges here, namely, that
an icon is often described as timeless,16 but
at the same time responding to current
market demand. This paradox has been
noted by David Chipperfield, a prize-
winning English architect who heads a rela-
tively small firm (number 76 in the BD 2008
ranking), in his interview on the term
‘iconic’ for the magazine Iconeye: icon maga-
zine on-line:
‘The sort of new icon architecture . . . has a
certain danger that everything has to look
spectacular, everything has to look like it’s
changing the world, even if it’s really not
doing that much. I’m not purposely avoiding
making an icon. An icon just happens. If you
think about three-dimensional objects in
product design or furniture, there were
objects in the 20th century that became icons
that you wouldn’t classify as icons using the
current meaning. Clients now say that they
are looking for an icon, and I know that
means it has got to look blobby, actually.
Now, I think you could say that Mies’
Barcelona chair is an icon, but in some ways it
is quite self-effacing. Design objects of the
20th century, whether it’s Mario Bellini’s
typewriters [for Olivetti] or Michele De
Lucchi’s lamp or whatever, became icons
because of how beautiful they were or how
successful they were. Now we have to have an
instant icon. It has to say it’s an icon at the
very point of delivery.’ (www.iconeye.com)
Despite Chipperfield, the firms that make this
criticism of iconic architecture are very often
those which at the same time actively
support iconic architecture, more often rede-
fining it but without adding clarity, and thus
intensifying their own ambiguous attitude
towards the trend to the iconic. Emblematic
is the famous case of Rem Koolhaas, whose
firm OMA was number 40 in the BD Top

Figure 5 Promotional material for the West Kowloon Cultural District
(Source: Roberto Correa)
100 in 2008. Koolhaas criticizes starchitects
and architectural icons, proposing instead
anti-iconic icons (www.oma.nl). This suggests
a further application of the term iconic in
architecture, which deserves further study:
namely, when the architect is said to be iconic.
Architect as icon: the birth of the
starchitect
As with architectural iconicity itself, the archi-
tect as icon (starchitect) works at three spatial
levels, the local (usually city), the national and
the global as well as chronologically.17 In a par-
allel study the starchitect is defined in terms of
fame (prestigious prizes; dissemination of
information about their iconic works through
their own publications and publications by
others, exhibitions of their work, brand-
stretching within the culture–ideology of con-
sumerism, and legacy); recognition of and
debate about the significance of their work, in
terms of cultural meanings, and aesthetic
SKLAIR AND GHERARDI: ICONIC ARCHITECTURE 67
qualities; and geographical reach, that is, the
impact of their buildings. While there are
many local and national starchitects, there are
relatively few global starchitects in these
senses.18 An important way of measuring the
extent to which an architect can be considered
a global starchitect is the coverage of his/her
work in the mass media globally (as well as
the other elements of fame noted above, most
of which can be monitored through mass
media coverage). As was previously demon-
strated (Sklair, 2005), the most famous and
most honoured architects are rarely those
who have the biggest firms.
Table 3 presents the sum of articles, from
the first publication mentioning the architect
to the last article before 30 May 2009, on the
online version of The Guardian, The Times,
Le Monde, El Pais, Il Corriere della Sera
and New York Times (in the original
languages of these newspapers). Foster,
Gehry, Koolhaas and Hadid are the only
architects mentioned in all of the following
68 CITY VOL. 16, NOS. 1– 2

Table 2 Use of and attitude towards iconic architecture by BD Top 10 firms (2008)

Position in BD Top Attitude toward

100 Usage of icon/iconic on firm’s website iconic architecture
1. Gensler Building, architectural element, an age Supportive
2. HOK Building, style, type of architecture, structures, feature, project, Supportive
architect, landmark, architectural statement and critical
3. Nikken Sekkei Architectural element, silhouette Supportive
4. Aedas Building and its character, mixed development, form, design, Supportive
public sculptures, city’s identity
5. Foster Project, architectural element, beacon, architectural image for a city, Supportive
brand, replacement, development; icon/iconic appears mostly
in reported news
6. SOM Design, building, form, structure, firm’s historic buildings and design Supportive
7. BDP Element/s of a building, building, cluster of buildings, element and Supportive
at the same time building containing it, campus
8. RMJM Gate Neutral
9. HKS Architecture, element, lifestyle Supportive
10. Atkins Building, design and Atkins’ design reputation in Kuwait Supportive

Table 3 Coverage in quality newspapers of BD Top 10 firms (2008) and of global starchitects

BD Top 10 and global Selected buildings called iconic on firm’s Number of articles in newspaper
starchitects website sample
1. Gensler Shanghai Tower (Shanghai) 80
2. HOK Arch, Wembley Stadium (London) 99
3. Nikken Sekkei Tabira-cho Town Hall (Nagasaki) 1
4. Aedas Iris Crystal Tower (Dubai) 6
5. Fostera Swiss Re (London) 1704
6. SOM Jin Mao Tower (Shanghai) 101
7. BDP Glasgow Science Centre (Glasgow) 22
8. RMJM Gate to the East (Suzhou) 65
9. HKS W Hollywood Hotel (Hollywood) 4
10. Atkins Al-Rajhi Tower (Riyadh) n/a

Most cited starchitects Selected iconic building

Frank Gehry None (see text) 1264
Rem Koolhaas CCTV Beijing (Beijing) 1193
Zaha Hadid EuskoTren Headquarter (Durango) 1183
a
Foster is the only architect to appear on BD Top 10 and most cited starchitects lists.
Sources: See text.

online journals: Arabic News, The Moscow
Times, Chinadaily and Indianexpress
(English version).19
As Table 3 shows, apart from Foster, the
firms that make up the BD Top 10 have rela-
tively low coverage in mass media interna-
tionally, both in absolute terms and
compared to other companies in the lower
half of the BD Top 100. For example,
Herzog & de Meuron (51st place) totals 665
articles and Chipperfield (76th place) totals
243 articles. This leads us to ask why firms
comprising hundreds of fee-earning archi-
tects and turnover that in all cases exceeded
US$100 million in 2007 – 2008 barely reach
100 articles in the press, limited even in
some cases to just a few dozen—in the case
of Nikken Sekkei, Aedas, BDP and HKS—

in the online versions of all the newspapers
sampled.
The same very small overlap between the
size of the firm and media coverage, can also
be seen when we consider other recognition
indicators. For example, the number of build-
ings designed by each firm in the BD Top 10
that appear in the Phaidon Atlas of Contem-
porary World Architecture (Phaidon, 2005,
hereafter PACWA) shows the same pattern.
Foster & Partners tops the list with 13 build-
ings, while more than half of the companies
in the BD Top 10 (Gensler, HOK, Aedas,
RMJM, HKS, Atkins), do not appear in
PACWA at all. The other BD Top 10 firms
(SOM, BDP and Nikken Sekkei) have only
one building selected each. The inverse can
also be said: among the architecture firms
with most buildings in PACWA, many are
not in the BD Top 100 and the rest have very
low positions. It is not a coincidence that the
introductory article to the BD Top 100 is
entitled: ‘Not Everyone’s a Starchitect’. Here
the myth of the architect as artistic genius, in
contemporary imagery is interpreted as a
romantic notion reinvented today by the
media:
‘Despite the fact that practices have expanded
to meet the demands of a global market, there
remains a romantic notion, particularly in some
elements of the media, of the individual genius
architect constantly dreaming up radical ideas
for new cultural buildings, while hopping from
International airport to International airport,
ignoring the cloying jet-lag to sketch. In short,
we like to be able to put a—preferably
charismatic—face to a—hopefully iconic, most
probably civic—building.’ (Gibson, 2008, p. 6)
In fact, as described, the figure of the iconic
architect appears as a modern version of the
figure of the artist found in romantic litera-
ture and shares the same features of grandeur
based on outstanding talent, mobility, dis-
tinctive creativity and inspiration.20
Again, with the exception of Foster,21 in
their own vision the companies in the top 10
contrast the prestige of the name of the
iconic architect with the prestige of numbers,
SKLAIR AND GHERARDI: ICONIC ARCHITECTURE 69
therefore their size, their projects and their
offices around the world. For example,
‘RMJM is one of the world’s leading
architectural practices. Our designers and
creative thinkers come from every corner of
the globe . . . We employ more than 1200
people in our offices in Cambridge, Dubai,
Edinburgh, Glasgow, Hong Kong, London,
Moscow, New York, Philadelphia, Princeton,
St Petersburg, Shanghai, Singapore and
Washington DC.’ (www.rmjm.com)
They place value on their own efficiency as
engineering giants as well as architects. Some-
times, as in the case of Nikken Sekkei, SOM,
BDP and Atkins, they are in fact mixed com-
panies, focusing on process innovation as the
result of the collaboration of a team of
experts22 linked to an international network
of service providers. This can be said of all
the top 10, from number 1 in the 2008 list,
Gensler:
‘As architects, designers, planners and
consultants, we partner with our clients on
some 3,600 projects every year. These projects
can be aS small as a wine label or as large as a
new urban district. With more than 2,500
professionals networked across 31 offices, we
serve our clients as trusted advisors,
combining localized expertise with global
perspective wherever new opportunities arise
. . . to serve our clients effectively on a global,
24/7 basis. Behind each client is a worldwide
network of architects, designers, planners and
consultants led by 178 Principals in 31 local
offices, a firm with an international reputation
for innovative design, superb delivery, and
efficient management of its teams and
projects.’ (www.gensler.com)
to number 10, Atkins (Figure 6):
‘With our community of 650 architects,
Atkins is one of the world’s largest
architecture firms. But architecture is just one
part of our story. With design studios around
the world—in locations such as London,
Dubai, Shanghai and Bangalore—we form
part of a leading multidisciplinary
consultancy employing 18,000 professionals.
70 CITY VOL. 16, NOS. 1– 2
Figure 6 Atkins’ worldwide offices
(Source: www.atkinsdesign.com)
Our architects and urban designers work
seamlessly alongside structural and civil
engineers, environmentalists, acousticians,
hydrologists and many more built
environment experts . . . Atkins is the largest
engineering consultancy in the UK, the
largest multidisciplinary consultancy in
Europe and the world’s eighth largest design
firm. Our size brings significant value to our
clients, allowing us to harness an unrivalled
pool of creative, professional people to
produce outstanding solutions to challenging
problems.’ (www.atkinsdesign.com)
How can we explain the disparity between
size and economic results of the largest trans-
national architecture businesses on the one
hand, and the relative lack of iconicity of
their architects and the buildings they create
on the other? Frank Gehry’s small firm
seems to be so famous that on its website
there are no images of any buildings when
accessed in 2009 (despite the fact that his Gug-
genheim Bilbao is one of the most famous
buildings in the world today), merely ‘Pre-
liminary sketches for the Panama Puente de
Vida Museo’ (www.foga.com) (Figure 7).
When interviewed by Charles Jencks, noted
architectural critic and entrepreneur, on the
elements that make an icon and the origin of
the difference between a bad icon and a good
icon, Gehry answered: ‘It ultimately comes
down to the talent of the person who creates
it’ (in Jencks, 2005, p. 172).
The implication of this judgement is that
such talent is recognized in an architectural
market that is also a reputational market, in
which iconicity is a quality of the buildings,
sites and architects that are traded. The recog-
nized iconic status of a project or a building
often seems to pass through the recognition
of the iconic status of the architect or the
firm responsible for the design: it is as if the
iconicity of a building has difficulty in
being established without the intermediation
of the iconic architect. The architectural
icon must be accompanied by a famous
author, whose own story is interwoven with
that of the building. If the buildings of an
architect considered iconic become more
easily recognized as iconic than others by
cross-fertilization from the author’s status
to that of his works—following a process
that is not very different from that of the
sculptor or painter or musician—the question
becomes how an architect achieves such
status, and therefore what makes an architect

Figure 7 Preliminary sketch for the Panama Puente de Vida Museo by Frank Gehry
(Source: www.foga.com)
iconic, what makes an architect a global
starchitect? Our answer to this question, as
will be clear from the evidence presented
above, identifies the most globally iconic
starchitects as participants in the hegemonic
project of the TCC in an increasingly celeb-
rity-based culture – ideology of consumerism.
And in this respect, iconic architecture is
similar to most of the other culture industries
but, given its presence in the actual and/or
virtual lives of billions of people, it is argu-
ably the most important if largely unrecog-
nized culture industry.
Notes
1 For a review of Jencks (2005) and two other
contributions to the debate, see Sklair (2006a).
2 The entertaining website of this project, still running
in December 2010, can be found at www.journals.
cambridge.org/urbanicons
3 This special issue of HAR also includes, among
others, a short manifesto-like text from the 1940s by
Giedion, the artist Léger and the architect Sert, and
a paper by Curtis.
4 Vale (2008) is an authoritative study of
parliamentary buildings in capital cities all over the
world throughout the 20th century, with many
excellent examples of the changing nature of such
architecture.
5 While limitations of space preclude further
SKLAIR AND GHERARDI: ICONIC ARCHITECTURE 71
discussion of monumentality here, see also, from a
formidable literature, the excellent case studies of
the Vietnam Memorial Wall (Griswold, 1986) and
Tiananmen Square (Wu, 1991).
6 For paths into this literature, see the multi-
volume Encyclopedia of Globalization (Ritzer,
2012).
7 The global economic crisis that began in 2007 hit
architect and architect– developer firms hard, with
many reports of iconic projects being delayed or
abandoned, prompting a debate on ‘Does the
recession mean the end of the icon?’ at the Hay
(England) Festival in May 2009. By 2010 the
industry appeared to be recovering slowly and the
current ‘world’s tallest building’—the Burj Khalifa
tower in Dubai—despite a malfunctioning elevator
to the observation deck, was instantly dubbed
iconic.
8 See Sklair (2005, 2006b). The findings from these
interviews will be fully analysed in a forthcoming
book, to be entitled ‘The Architecture of
Globalization’.
9 All websites cited were searched between 1
February and 30 June 2009.
10 As noted in Table 2, there is a similar claim in
SOM’s website: ‘SOM’s Seventy Years of Iconic
Designs. It is no easy matter to sum up seventy years
of architectural practice. In “Skidmore, Owings &
Merrill: SOM since 1936”, architectural historian
Nicholas Adams of Vassar College undertook to
give an overview of the firm and its history’ (www.
som.com).
11 For an account of the first phase of this project by
one of the design partners that explicitly confirms
the importance of iconicity, see Carmona (2006).
72 CITY VOL. 16, NOS. 1– 2
12 The Pudong district of Shanghai has several self-
proclaimed iconic buildings, for example, ‘Designed
by HOK, the 41-story, 800,000 square-foot office
tower awaits final approval from the City Council
before taking shape as the city’s tallest and most iconic
structure’ (www.hok.com); ‘The 12-story United Gulf
Bank building [by SOM] is one of the region’s most
iconic corporate edifices’ (www.som.com).
13 This occurs even without the building necessarily
being the symbol of an event that in some way
involves the territory in which it is promoted, as
would be the case of, for example, a stadium built
for the Olympic Games or the World Cup.
14 In this regard, it is significant to note the anecdote of
foreigners visiting London, who, referring to the
Swiss Re building (Foster’s Gherkin), ask how many
there are in the city.
15 For a lively account of the ongoing competition
surrounding the ‘Tallest Building in the World’, see
King (2004, chap. 1).
16 For example: ‘Aedas created an iconic building
[R&F Centre Guangzhou] that is commercially
efficient, elegant and timeless’ (www.aedas.com).
17 Iconicity can refer to architects of the past, not just of
the present, for example, ‘HOK International has
revealed new images of its London Docklands-based
Churchill Place development, inspired by iconic
Finnish Modernist Alvar Aalto’ (www.hok.com).
18 Sklair (forthcoming) identifies the four most
important contemporary global starchitects as
Norman Foster, Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid and Rem
Koolhaas. See also, McNeill (2009).
19 Online searches have been carried out for every
newspaper website in the sample. The option chosen
was articles/full text/all categories and the search
terms were: ‘name of the firm’ + ‘architecture’.
20 In rhetoric, however, the architect serves the
common good, and is therefore socially committed
(compare the discussions of McNeill, 2009 and
Saint, 1983). This is in contrast to the figure of the
artistic genius, portrayed in romantic literature,
attributed nowadays to internationally famous
painters and sculptors, see Gherardi (2010).
21 The Foster website also contrasts this idea through its
iconicity communication strategy. In its website
icon/iconic appear also in quotations from other
firms that are reported (for example, in the ‘News’
section), while in the company’s own descriptions it
more frequently uses the term ‘landmark’ to describe
its buildings. With the exception of Aedas, which
makes a distinction between ‘icon’ and ‘landmark’
on its website, the other companies in the BD Top 10
appear to use the two terms as synonyms.
22 ‘We don’t positively encourage the star architect
approach. Instead, we like a number of leaders in
their field to be collaborating in the design process’
(Chris Johnson, managing principal of Gensler,
quoted in Gibson, 2008, p. 6).
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Leslie Sklair is Professor Emeritus of Sociology
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Laura Gherardi is Associate Researcher in Soci-
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