A few months ago, I came across a design competition for Silicon Valley’s new landmark, Urban Confluence. I wondered why such a well-recognized region like Silicon Valley is still in the search for its landmark? The answer is that a great landmark can define a region and its culture in a way that tech giants couldn’t.
Every towns and city are different, and a big part of what made them unique is their architecture. Indeed, many people recognize a city for its iconic landmarks: Eiffel Tower in Paris, Sydney Opera house in Sydney, or Statue of Liberty in New York. But what does it take to build an iconic landmark?
Creating a landmark is like building a successful business; there is no wrong or right answer on how to succeed. Yet, we can learn from the past and try to understand what all the great landmarks have in common?
Contrast
In ‘The image of the city’ book, Kevin Lynch pointed out five important elements that create an image of the city: path, edge, district, node, and landmark. While other elements help to create a directional image of a city, a landmark is a part of both physical and mental images of a city. Lynch wrote in his book:
“Since the use of landmarks involves the singling out of one element from a host possibilities, the key physical characteristics of this class singularity, some aspect that is unique or memorable in the context.”
It’s evident that landmarks are unique but not just limited to scale. Simply building a giant tower or wall does not make it a landmark, even though it worked many times. A landmark must be contrasted with the surrounding context to be recognizable. For example, Cloud Gate in Chicago is famous for its unique design and silhouette despite having a much smaller size from the surroundings. Another example and my favourite landmark are Central Park in New York, a beautiful green fabric surrounded by giant towers.
History
Human is full of pride when it comes to history. We even build museums to show off our history, and buildings are just giant artifacts that too big to keep inside a museum. Buildings tell us about the history of a city, an empire, and its culture. Landmarks are just unique buildings with more magnificent stories.
We learned about history through the grand architecture of our ancestors. Just to name examples, Ancient Egypt history is told by the Great Pyramid of Giza or Roman Empire history are told by Colosseum or Pantheon Temple. In fact, Colosseum is one of the greatest architecture Roman had built just to slaughter people and animals.
History does not need to be hundreds of years; history could be just yesterday. Every day we are parts of the new history, and we are able to write the next chapter in our history. So if you were to design a landmark, you need to design both architecture and history to go into it.
The secret ingredient — love
Landmarks are manmade structures, after all. Landmarks are designed by humans, built by humans, and it’s humans that make them great. No matter how great a building or structure is, it will not become a great landmark without our love for them.
“We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.” — Winston Churchill
It is the love for the landmarks that make us write, talk, draw, or photograph them. In fact, we travel around the world to see landmarks, and we share our stories, photographs, drawings of them with others. Those are the most important things that have made a landmark stand out from others.
There might be no recipe to create a landmark, but I have found the secret ingredient that will make a landmark remarkable, our love.
