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The Ambiguity Of The Iconic

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This essay will explore the ambiguity of the Iconic, what does it stand for in the modern world of architecture and how does it originate. The obsession of architecture with this term is slowly taking over; architects strive towards creating Iconic buildings as a way to gain fame. How does one design an Iconic building and what does it imply when placed within a particular context? We will explore this through a particular architectural project of the church of San Giovanni Battista under Florence, an icon which never really succeeded in achieving its purpose and yet contains some of the very fundamental and curcial ideas about the Iconic which I want to express in this essay. Why does one building (such as the Eiffel tower or London Gherkin)become symbolic for a city while other attempt to replicate this phenomenon fail? And most importantly what role does the context (as a city morphology or natural habitat) play …show more content…

Which can be seen protruding right underneath the tilted buttress. It is a set of concrete blocks that suspend the bells of the church.This decision defies the original meaning of church bells. The element seizes to act as a highlight point of a tower, that used to be the case in many churches including Russian orthodox and Italian Catholic architecture, where the bell tower always stoodabove the rest of the structure and the surrounding.Thus bearing symbolic and practical value. In the church of the highway however, the bells are beneath the weight of architecture, hidden by the concrete slabs. This furthermore reinforces Michelucci's idea of creating an icon of speed: architecture that is not meant to become a centre of a town or unifying element of society, but rather a glimpse of a flash. The bells are no more needed to spread the sound over long distance, which was the case in a city, and therefore lose their original significance. Instead the bells transform into a purely technical

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