Architectural icon is a term from Architecture criticism and designates buildings that are or were groundbreaking or claim uniqueness because of their design. Definition These outstanding buildings and ensembles meet several of the following criteria: widespread recognition popularity originality symbol value significance for the development of architecture representative of an architectural style Sabine Thiel-Siling writes in her preface to Architectural icons of the 20th century: "The buildings are spectacular for their time and their surroundings, whether through their constructive achievements or innovative use of materials, through their formal language or because they embodied a completely new type of building for the first time." Some buildings have developed into pilgrimage venues for architecture enthusiasts or have even become landmarks of cities, even countries. But they have often been misunderstood by laymen, even when they have become role models for entire generations of architects. Tom Wright, the architect of Burj al Arab said on the same subject: "How can you tell that a building has become a symbol? If you can draw it in five seconds, and everyone knows what it is." Criticism In order to achieve an abstract goal, architects often plan outside the needs of their clients. The Chicago physician Edith Farnsworth, who commissioned Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in 1945 to design a weekend house in which she could retreat for relaxation, was not impressed by the purism of her Farnsworth House, which cost her a lot of money, and expressed herself to the architect as follows: "I wanted something "meaningful," and all I got was this smooth, superficial sophistry" (in German: ) And it was precisely this mansion that became a place of pilgrimage for architectural tourists. People LeBlanc writes about: "The architectural tourist is a courageous man who easily plans a whole journey to see a certain building; who looks for half a day to find it; who lingers for hours at the threshold, hoping to enter. But his tenacity is worth it, because to fully understand a building, you have to see it for yourself." (in German: ) Jürgen Tietz, who in the Neuen Zürcher Zeitung critically examines the urge for ever new architectural symbols triggered by the so-called "Bilbao effect" of Frank O. Gehry's Guggenheim Museum in the Basque Bilbao, also takes up the fact that you have to see a building yourself. First this fashion wave reached the metropolises before it reached the smaller