Architecture is a place where fantasy and cold calculation collide, and each new building becomes an icon designed to express the history and reveal the culture of the country. But something much more is hidden behind the excursions, souvenir stalls and tourist routes.
The Sydney Opera House, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and the Peak Tower in Hong Kong are just a few of the world-famous buildings that shape the images of their cities and countries. Thousands of photos on social networks turn them into modern icons that are admired, and at the same time they become means of manipulation and influence of the authorities. Their popularity is a branding tool: contours and shapes evoke persistent images and thereby turn architectural structures into objects of fashion and hype. Kisses against the background of the Eiffel Tower, funny "support" of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, proposals of the hand and heart among the clouds of the Burj Khalifa - this is no longer a spectacular beauty. It is the engine of economic growth.
Sociologist Leslie Skler aptly quotes Warhol ("all shops will become museums, and all museums will be shops") and teaches to read iconic buildings by lines and details, to understand how they have become archives of memory and instruments of power. He lays down the foundations of capitalism brick by brick and proves that architecture is not only about style and history.
The book "The Icon Project" is not about buildings. It is a journey into the world of emotions, impressions and manipulations of the city, which becomes a theater where architecture is the actors, and each new play is a scenario dictated by the economy and power.
