The next architectural wonder in Dubai will be an observation tower designed by Santiago Calatrava. It’s a new “Eiffel Tower,” more graceful looking than the original and taller. It’s an observation tower that will exceed the height of previous structures. If it were much taller, visitors might need a space suit.
It will, like the Eifel Tower, become “iconic.” Strange. In a land surrounded by a culture opposed to icons, a building will become one. But that’s us. Just about all of us have something we consider iconic, and now we have icons on our monitors, phones, and tablets. We’re long past the simple use of a saint’s image. Even our fictional heroes and heroines are iconic. We use the word freely: Iconic music, iconic musicians, iconic art, iconic this, or that, or something else. Icons are more than likenesses in a stained glass window; they represent, if not the best of a kind, then the culturally accepted standard of a kind.
Build Calatrava’s Eiffel into this. Mere size warrants iconic status. “Taller,” “larger,” “more voluminous,” and even “long lived,” these quantities qualify iconic. Wait! I have an idea. I know why we have so many icons. Earth is an iconic human planet. My goodness! We’re living on an icon.
It will, like the Eifel Tower, become “iconic.” Strange. In a land surrounded by a culture opposed to icons, a building will become one. But that’s us. Just about all of us have something we consider iconic, and now we have icons on our monitors, phones, and tablets. We’re long past the simple use of a saint’s image. Even our fictional heroes and heroines are iconic. We use the word freely: Iconic music, iconic musicians, iconic art, iconic this, or that, or something else. Icons are more than likenesses in a stained glass window; they represent, if not the best of a kind, then the culturally accepted standard of a kind.
Build Calatrava’s Eiffel into this. Mere size warrants iconic status. “Taller,” “larger,” “more voluminous,” and even “long lived,” these quantities qualify iconic. Wait! I have an idea. I know why we have so many icons. Earth is an iconic human planet. My goodness! We’re living on an icon.
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