Inspired by Things Magazine's recent note on buildings as logotypes (London's Gherkin building and NatWest tower, etc), Rodcorp went back to an old favourite: "How simply (or in how few lines) and recognisably can we draw buildings?". The question tends to privilege strong silhouettes and bridges, but so be it. Here's a list (with the help of Arup's Mr Urick, a clever man who spends his days designing buildings) and some drawings from unreliable memory.
First, the bridges etc:
Sydney: The Sydney Opera House, the most recognisable building of all surely?, next to the Harbour bridge (which may only be unambiguous when it's next to the Opera House).
London: Tower Bridge. Barcelona: La Sagrada Familia.
Paris: Eiffel Tower. Athens: The Acropolis.
New York: Guggenheim Museum.
And then the pseudo-Platonic forms:
Cairo: A Pyramid.
Paris: La Defense. New York: Flatiron.
Washington: The Pentagon. [Brussels: the Atomium should have gone here.]
Orlando: Epcot Centre. London: The London Eye.
A list of others to do (gradually becoming a list of buildings that would be recognisable but less distinctive as a logo/drawing, or distinctive as a drawing but maybe not particularly recognisable...):
UK: Stonehenge.
Brussels: the Atomium
New York: The WTC towers, Statue of Liberty, Empire State (though confusion with Chrysler?).
San Francisco: Golden Gate bridge. And perhaps the TransAmerica pyramid.
Cairo: The Sphinx.
Moscow: St Basil's Cathedral, Red Square.
Los Angeles: Hollywood sign (building? structure?).
Istanbul: Haga Sofia.
China: The Great Wall?
Angkor Wat or various other pre-modern cities.
South Dakota: Mount Rushmore.
St. Louis: St. Louis Arch.
Rio de Janeiro: Statue of Christ the Redeemer.
London: Big Ben you idiot! (quoting Urick).
Hong Kong: Bank of China.
Birmingham: Selfridges.
Washington: The Washington Monument.
Seattle: The Spaceneedle.
Toronto: the CN Tower.
Rome: The Vatican (Michael Angelo's "arms" in front), the Pantheon (the dome and skylight from the inside).
Kuala Lumpur: Petronas Towers.
Venice: Ponte di Rialto.
Many things in Brasilia by Oscar Niemeyer.
Chicago: Sears Tower
Athens: the Parthenon
Frankfurt: Commerzbank
Nevada: Hoover Dam
Paris: Louvre Pyramid
Superheroes: Hall of Justice (introduces a whole new topic, fictional landmarks...)
Now read this:
Tesugen on imageability of cities, and Webb on the same: Lynch's Image of the City.
And then: Constantin Boym's missing monuments, and buildings of disaster.
And you could even download world landmarks for The Sims (more here).
Update:
CityOfEverythingInteresting has a much less literal way of drawing simply, and is asking whether his sketches of the Bilbao Guggenheim are recognisable. We haven't yet made a Rodcorporate trip to Bilbao, but his sketches are indeed recognisable, avoid Jonathan Bell's fear of building-as-logo (see the comments) falling short of building-as-architecture. Perhaps they even recognisably reveal the building's references: is this an echo of Niemeyer's Brasilia cathedral?
How about Edinburgh's Scott Monument? It would definitely translate to a distinctive logo, but might result in associations with spaceships rather than a building...
Posted by: C Gray | April 27, 2004 at 06:24 PM
In the bridges category you can include The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Like the Parisian tower it is inescapable as a logo for the city (though it does require a few more lines than the tower).
Posted by: jwaggone | April 30, 2004 at 03:06 PM
If all else fails, lower your standards.
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Posted by: ShookeprerS | May 06, 2008 at 09:43 PM