Untapped: Redefining 'Iconic' Architecture and Ideals

Author: Sophie Lovell
Date: c. 2024 (year approximate — article year not printed)
Source type: article (Untapped journal essay)
Raw file: raw/articles/lovell-2024-redefining-iconic-architecture.md

Summary

Sophie Lovell argues that the word "iconic" has become an "unsustainable and destructive" term and should be abandoned. The "iconic" buildings of late capitalism — the Shards, Gherkins, Burjs, CCTV Headquarters, "pretty much anything by Frank Gehry" — are not innovative avant-garde emblems but "bombastic indicators of dominance, excess, indiscriminate growth, and disconnection," part of an "arms race of the spectacular." Lovell contrasts this "me" architecture of celebrity, single authorship, and debt-fuelled megaprojects with a post-"iconic" architecture of collective, collaborative authorship — illustrated by collectives such as Raumlabor, Exyzt/Constructlab, Forty Five Degrees, and thinkers such as Tatjana Schneider — that prizes social value, context, ecology, and moderation over capital.

Key Claims

• "Iconic" is destructive: it is "the go-faster stripes of the 21st century with a dodgy ideology to match"; it named a consumer object/building/person as a symbol of an ideology "defined and perpetuated by the rise of a global postindustrial elite."
• The deception of single authorship: Renzo Piano "didn't design all of The Shard... the dozens of architects at RPBW did." Starchitect names are "brands hired in the service of branding." Citing Simone Brott: such architecture is a "visual stunt," its "megaprojects... only made possible by colossal debt arrangements."
• "Iconic" buildings are stand-alone and disruptive: "fabricated narratives of success" that "disrupt, rather than integrate into, the urban environment," bring little social value, and are "physically and stylistically dead ends, incapable of adaptation."
• Post-"iconic" collaborative architecture ("we") treats architecture "as an act of moderation and responsibility" and "an act of agency rather than objects" (Schneider): collective, context-driven, engaging multiple stakeholders with transparency, equity, and care. Examples: Raumlabor's Floating University, Exyzt's Metavilla at the 2006 Venice Biennale, Constructlab.
• The modernist "man" at the centre is itself the icon to be questioned: Aalto's humanism is admirable but rooted in a paradigm that treats nature as an exploitable resource; Le Corbusier's Modulor Man and Neufert's Architect's Data are (male) normative figures. Lovell extends the critique to the human/nonhuman dichotomy — "no icons, no idols, no false gods—just beautiful, regenerative, long-term, functioning entanglement."
• Language change: in a post-growth, entangled world, Lovell seeks "a new language of 'and,' not 'or,'" where "value" is "measured in levels of care."

Connections

Concepts: Iconic Architecture · Star Architecture · Authorship · Everyday Architecture
Authors: Sophie Lovell · Simone Brott (cited) · Frank Gehry · Charles Jencks · Deyan Sudjic
Debates: Spectacle vs. Function · Genius vs. Bureaucracy
Related source notes: Look at Me! (Morrison) · What is Iconic Architecture? (Brott) · The Future Is Hairy (Till & Wigglesworth) · Is the Era of the Skyscraper Over? (Wainwright)

Direct Quotes

"The term is unsustainable and destructive—and there are other ways of building far more worthy of attention."

"They are not innovative emblems of the avant-garde. They are bombastic indicators of dominance, excess, indiscriminate growth, and disconnection."

"The names of the so-called starchitects hired to design 'iconic' buildings represent brands hired in the service of branding." (citing Brott on the "visual stunt")

"Let that be a goal for our cities: no icons, no idols, no false gods—just beautiful, regenerative, long-term, functioning entanglement."

Open Questions

• Lovell's repudiation of the "iconic" parallels Morrison's "Look at Me!" and Sudjic's scepticism — does her call to simply stop using the word resolve the debate, or does it sidestep Jencks's argument that the icon's "enigmatic signifier" has real cultural power?