Towards an Understanding of Architectural Iconicity in Global Perspective

Author: Leslie Sklair
Year: 2009 (chapter trajectory from earlier publications 2001-2006)
Source type: chapter
Raw file: raw/chapters/sklair-towards-understanding-architectural-iconicity.md

Summary

Sklair argues that iconic architecture must be understood through the lens of capitalist globalization driven by the transnational capitalist class (TCC), not generic globalization. The chapter traces how iconic buildings serve specific class interests, from Renaissance villas to contemporary skyscrapers in East Asia. Sklair distinguishes four TCC factions (corporate, state, technical, consumerist) and shows how iconic architecture reinforces hierarchies while appearing to create national identity. The analysis covers postcolonial architecture, the shift from international modernism to consumerist hybridity, and the role of "starchitects" in producing icons for the global elite.

Key Claims

• Architecture is hegemonic in a class sense: Certain buildings serve specific class interests alongside their aesthetic qualities. Examples: Renaissance villas reproduced northern Italian class divisions; Hilton Hotels were "little Americas" for the upper middle-class in the Third World.

• Generic vs. capitalist globalization:

  • Generic globalization has emancipatory potential through: (1) electronic revolution, (2) new cosmopolitanisms, (3) postcolonialisms, (4) transnational social spaces
  • Capitalist globalization subverts this potential in the interests of the TCC

• Four factions of the Transnational Capitalist Class (TCC):

  1. Corporate faction (owners/controllers of TNCs)
  2. State faction (globalizing politicians/bureaucrats)
  3. Technical faction (globalizing professionals)
  4. Consumerist faction (merchants, media, advertising)

• Iconic architecture defined: "the fame of a particular building or space, which can come about through a distinctive aesthetic and symbolic significance." Icons operate at local, national, regional, or global levels.

• Historical shift: Pre-global era iconic architecture was driven by state/religious elites; under capitalist globalization, the TCC increasingly controls iconic production in its narrow class interests.

• Postcolonial architecture debate: The tension between international modernism (glass/steel/curtain walls, little decoration) and architectural regionalism (vernacular, local methods/materials). In reality, both get hybridized for consumerist marketing.

• "Starchitects" as agents of capitalist globalization: Most contemporary icons in the Third World are designed by First World starchitects (Koolhaas, Hadid, etc.) in an "ill-advised attempt to put some city 'on the map'." Third World architects rarely get commissions in the First World.

• The Orientalism of regionalism: Non-Western architects are celebrated for "bogus regional exoticism" (Barragán for Mexicanness, Niemeyer for Brazilianness, Correa for Indianness, Fathy for Arabness) but denied subject status in modernism. As Prakash notes: "Architects of the West do not specifically make Western buildings. Architects of the non-West are expected to."

• Transnational social spaces: Skyscrapers, branded malls, theme parks, waterfront developments — "spaces that, despite their regional characteristics, could be almost anywhere in the world." These exclude the local subaltern Other.

• Three audiences for iconic cities:

  1. National/international tourists (especially business tourism)
  2. Local urban upper-middle class
  3. Local working class (indirectly, encouraged to participate through occasional outings, promoted as civic/national pride)

• The Petronas Towers case: Cesar Pelli's design for Malaysia exemplifies how iconic architecture obscures poverty while creating "apparent public affluence through iconic architecture" via the culture-ideology of consumerism.

Connections

Concepts: iconic-architecture
Authors: sklair-leslie
Debates: jencks-vs-sklair-iconic-architecture
Related source notes: sklair-2005-transnational-capitalist-class-contemporary-architecture, mahmoud-2014-iconic-architecture-publicizing-cities

Direct Quotes

"Generic globalization offers almost unlimited emancipatory potential for life on earth, whereas capitalist globalization subverts this potential in the selfish interests of the transnational capitalist class."

"Iconic architecture I define in terms of the fame of a particular building or space, which can come about through a distinctive aesthetic and symbolic significance."

"Architects of the West do not specifically make Western buildings. Architects of the non-West are expected to." — Prakash on identity production

"Through the culture-ideology of consumerism, which seems to promise the fruits of capitalist globalization to all (fortified by platitudes like 'the rising tide lifts all boats'), transnational social spaces from above create apparent public affluence through iconic architecture."

Open Questions

• How does Sklair's class-based analysis of iconicity relate to Debord's spectacle theory? Is the icon the spectacle made concrete?
• What is the relationship between Sklair's "transnational social spaces" and Koolhaas's "Junkspace"?
• How does the empirical finding "visuality peaks, function lasts" (Alaily-Mattar 2025) relate to Sklair's claim that icons serve consumerist ideology?