Introduction to Iconic Architecture

This week we initiated work on the second stage of our project - advancing and intensifying our folie concept to a greater scale. It was our first tutorial for our theme group "Icon" which was taught by Davor. He introduced to us a personal style, perception and understanding of iconic architecture and its role and usablity within today's society. He emphasised that is was a form of architecture which concentrated on scale at a large level. Particularly this play with scale allows users to be attracted to the building aswell as the site, via visual stimulance and functionality. Particularly, he envisioned that our response to a new development for the Howard Smith Wharves would be iconic in this manner, although it was clear that it was to be influenced by our own interpretation.

I am very interested in this type and form of architecture, as I believe that it is the most upfront style at capturing the eye and therefore drawing the attention of the user to the site of the building. I find that my understandings and beliefs coincide with the relevance and importance of this architecture, which Davor introduced to the group. Through my study of architecture I have found that many buidling designs are characterless, due to the lack of a bold sense of quality and function. One can only assume that architects are sometimes disregarding of uniqueness and individuality which creates this lack of character.

We discussed as a tutorial class as to how this project was going to develop throughout the next couple of weeks. Davor made it clear that this project would be self motivated and established from the beginning, as we were to intiate all schedules, briefs, parameters, etc for the development of our building on our own doing. Consequently, we began to individually plan a draft brief, that would allow us to develop our concept and conceptual designs.

I began to form a very open brief of a building, which entailed;

• Must be approxiamately 1000m2 in sizing


• Large scaled structure


• Must interact with the site context


• Functionally sound


• Draw the user to the site in such a way, different to what it is now


• Occupy the space in an interesting manner....

For next week Davor insisted that we begin to think very conceptually about our ideas, concepts and briefs. To understand and grasp the sense of iconic architecture he emphasised that we research and gain knowledge as to how current iconic buildings are formed and designed.