{"id":4222,"date":"2014-10-01T20:00:36","date_gmt":"2014-10-01T20:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aecom.com\/blogs\/do-our-cities-need-more-icons\/"},"modified":"2017-07-25T10:19:36","modified_gmt":"2017-07-25T14:19:36","slug":"do-our-cities-need-more-icons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aecom.com\/blog\/do-our-cities-need-more-icons\/","title":{"rendered":"Do our cities need more icons?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This was the subject of a discussion convened by AECOM at the Center for Architecture<\/a> during the opening week of our Urban SOS<\/a> exhibition. We invited a small group of thinkers and observers of the built environment in New York to discuss the topic with four of AECOM\u2019s design leaders.<\/p>\n

Jacinta McCann<\/a>, global lead for AECOM\u2019s Design + Planning practice and president of the Landscape Architecture Foundation, kicked off the discussion by showing the experience of different cities \u2013 Sydney and its Opera House (a single object); Doha\u2019s Marina Bay (a cacophony of objects where AECOM is now designing a public realm to stich it all together); and New York\u2019s Rockefeller Center\u00a0with the art of Jeff Koons. Iconography can come in many different shapes and sizes, Jacinta said.<\/p>\n

Ross Wimer, Americas lead for AECOM\u2019s\u00a0Architecture\u00a0practice (pictured above),\u00a0explored the idea that a building could\u00a0be iconic not just on the outside but on the inside.\u00a0Drawing on\u00a0the example of a tower project he has worked on in China,\u00a0Ross showed how internal workings and innovations in sustainability and structure can speak just as powerfully about a city\u2019s aspirations \u2013\u00a0 if not more so, in fact \u2013 than its striking\u00a0profile in the skyline. Ross talked more about this in a recent podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Stephen Engblom<\/a>, Americas lead for AECOM\u2019s Design + Planning practice, took a historical view of iconography. From the Victorian train stations of the industrial era, to the towers of the roaring twenties in America and today\u2019s Gulf States and China, iconography follows the money so to speak. We can trace a direct correlation between waves of economic progress and architectural expression. The latest evidence of this, Stephen noted, is the recent trend of tech companies commissioning grand headquarters projects by starchitects, a phenomenon best reported by architecture critic Paul Goldberger in Vanity Fair<\/em><\/a>. There\u2019s Apple\u00a0and Foster,\u00a0Facebook\u00a0and Gehry.\u00a0Twitter\u2019s\u00a0headquarters remains\u00a0one of the last holdouts of urban grit in San Francisco.<\/p>\n

Bill Hanway,<\/a>\u00a0global\u00a0lead for AECOM’s Architecture practice, conjectured that perhaps what\u2019s most important to a city is not an iconic building or even an iconic skyline, but great systems underpinning it all. Bill cited the example of our work as masterplanners since 2005 for the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. There, striking structures such as Zaha Hadid\u2019s Swimming Pool, Anish Kapoor\u2019s Orbit, or Hopkins\u2019 Velodrome are carefully knit together into a cohesive park with new transport interchanges:\u00a0the centerpiece of a\u00a0powerful legacy plan\u00a0that emulates\u00a0London\u2019s traditional village patchwork pattern, far more iconic\u00a0overall than any of the individual buildings.<\/p>\n

Susan Szenasy, publisher of Metropolis<\/a>, agreed with Bill\u2019s assertion, noting that many cities suffer too many little silos. Paula Deitz, editor of the Hudson Review<\/a> and landscape architecture critic, asked if this question is something more and more cities around the globe are asking themselves\u00a0as big challenges like climate change\u00a0would seem to dwarf any particular iconic building. Other attendees included writers and editors from The Architects\u2019 Newspaper and Architect Magazine, as well as representatives from the Van Alen Institute<\/a>, Columbia University\u2019s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation<\/a>, the Institute for Public Architecture<\/a>, the New York Mayor\u2019s office, and the New York City Economic Development Corporation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Balancing the need for iconic architecture with the bigger picture of urban systems and challenges is an issue that AECOM grapples with\u00a0in its work with cities around the world. There\u2019s probably no more striking example of architectural firepower than Saadiyat Island<\/a>, Abu Dhabi. There a cultural district is under construction that will feature a particular intensity of iconography: Frank Gehry\u2019s Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Norman Foster\u2019s Sheikh Zayed Museum, Zaha Hadid\u2019s Opera House, Tadao Ando\u2019s Maritime Museum, and Jean Nouvel\u2019s Louvre Abu Dhabi. AECOM has carefully masterplanned Saadiyat so that these jewel-like icons can shine, but\u00a0are firmly embedded into the urban fabric of Abu Dhabi. It\u2019s a \u2018master-architect\u2019 role that requires flexibility\u00a0grounded in respect for the power of striking architecture while with an eye\u00a0to the whole urban puzzle. Abu Dhabi is a forward-thinking emirate trying to make a statement about the power of culture in a region fraught with conflict: a line-up of beautiful temples to knowledge and expression by architects who are diverse in both architectural style and cultural origin. Criticised by some as extravagant, it might just be an iconography that its time and place\u00a0needs<\/em>, considering the regional context.<\/p>\n

\"Saadiyat<\/a><\/p>\n

Saadiyat Island Cultural District.<\/em><\/p>\n

In Cambridge, UK, we are undertaking a similar role as our masterplan for the University of Cambridge\u2019s Northwest extension<\/a> enters its first development phase. We have helped to assemble a cracker-jack team of some of the UK\u2019s and Europe\u2019s most interesting architects to design new residential and academic clusters in what will be the largest extension for one of the world\u2019s oldest and most prestigious universities. The project, for which AECOM has been shortlisted for the World Architecture Festival Future Projects award (winner to be announced\u00a0this week in Singapore),\u00a0brings together a coalition of architects: Alison Brooks<\/a>, The AOC<\/a>, Cottrell Vermeulen<\/a>, Maccreanor Lavington<\/a>, Marks Barfield<\/a>, Mecanno<\/a>, Mole Architects<\/a>, MUMA<\/a>, Pollard Thomas Edwards<\/a>, RH Partnership<\/a>, Stanton Williams<\/a>, Wilkinson Eyre,<\/a> and Witherford Watson Mann<\/a>, with AECOM as landscape architects as well. The architecture will be refined, a touch eclectic but very much in the spirit of European city-making that makes places like Cambridge so special.<\/p>\n

\"Cambridge<\/a><\/p>\n

New residential courtyard in Cambridge University\u2019s northwest extension.<\/em><\/p>\n

In contrast to Saadiyat, it is a subtler iconography, but iconic nonetheless. Given Cambridge\u2019s centuries of heritage and status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, new architectural interventions must be deftly handled and delicately conducted to respect what is a memorable place. Each architect\u00a0will have\u00a0her or his\u00a0own distinct expression, and\u00a0the result\u00a0will be contemporary. Centuries from now, it will be the early 21st<\/sup> century layer in the rich Cambridge texture that\u00a0includes the Victorian, Georgian, Elizabethan and Medieval. Taken together, these make one iconic place, especially when one takes the long view of history.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why in retrospect, the right question probably isn\u2019t do our cities need more icons. It\u2019s more multifaceted than that. Iconography is about symbolism and aspiration, and these are at the heart of architectural expression and civic building. As urbanists, we should be questioning not whether we need more icons \u2013 our cities thrive on them \u2013 but how can they be better and more relevant to the people they are intended to inspire? Are we designing the right kinds of icons? Can a city as a whole be an architectural icon?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"dfe_cropped\"<\/a>Daniel Elsea (daniel.elsea@aecom.com) is creative director for AECOM\u2019s Buildings + Places group.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This was the subject of a discussion convened by AECOM at the Center for Architecture during the opening week of our Urban SOS exhibition. We invited a small group of thinkers and observers of the built environment in New York to discuss the topic with four of AECOM\u2019s design leaders. Jacinta McCann, global lead for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":222,"featured_media":4223,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[274,256],"tags":[37,148,285,191,181,286,219,211,177,220],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-4222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buildings","category-urban-design","tag-abu-dhabi","tag-architecture","tag-cambridge","tag-connected-cities","tag-doha","tag-iconography","tag-london","tag-new-york","tag-san-francisco","tag-urban-sos"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aecom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aecom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aecom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aecom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/222"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aecom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aecom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aecom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aecom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aecom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aecom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4222"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aecom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=4222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}