What makes you instantly to recognize the WORLD FAMOUS BUILDINGS?
Category: Other - Society & Culture, Tags: Dissertation, Famous Buildings, Landmarks, People, Vladka
VG asked:
I would like to find out (for my dissertation) why people recognize certain landmarks and are able to remember the country or city or even the name of the building while they would not recognize the others, equally significant ones.
I am very interested in your opinions. If you could think for a minute what is it that makes you remember and recognize this buildings, it would be a great help. Thank’s Vladka
I would like to find out (for my dissertation) why people recognize certain landmarks and are able to remember the country or city or even the name of the building while they would not recognize the others, equally significant ones.
I am very interested in your opinions. If you could think for a minute what is it that makes you remember and recognize this buildings, it would be a great help. Thank’s Vladka
7 Responses on What makes you instantly to recognize the WORLD FAMOUS BUILDINGS?
its usually becausse the building have a specific shape or form, or they are mentioned a lot. the human brain, especially the subconciousness does a lot with images before they enter your conciousness. simply by saying eifeltower, i know you immediately see the eifeltower in your mind. your mind simply reacts to what it sees, but only the relevant stuff will enter your conciousness. i.e. had you been in france, looking for a museum, and seeing the eifeltower inthe background, you would mostlikely not even remember seeing it, because youre looking for something else.
women are also genetically inclined to remember where they are with the use of landmarks, where men tend to use a more polar coordinationsystem, i.e. 12 steps in that direction. this mostlikely has something to do with the roles women and men had in ancient hunter/gatherer societies.
a) repetition. we’ve seen pictures of the building over and over
b) distinctiveness. the building has qualities that stand out from others.
c) in movies (this lis linked to repetition but I think it is a different category)
Sears Tower — solid black rectangle
Twin Towers — two white blocks–tallest in NY (or were)
Empire State Building — repetition
Chrysler Building - distinctive style
Versailles - style, size, repetition
Big Ben - distinctive, repetition
Transamerica Building - distinctive, repetition
Westminster Abbey - distinctive, repetition
Angkor Wat - distinctive, repetition (in a lot of movies)
Petronas Towers - distinctive ,repetition, mission impossible
Finally. An architectural related question based on architectural theory. I do believe this is based on how we percieve our physical environment (surroundings). We look at many things such as signs, symbolism, and aesthetics. Famous buildings fit these criterias.
As for signs, Lynch’s thoery on how we navigate the physical environment is about orienation, memory, and places refered by people. Famous buildings like the Gugenheim, Frank Gehry’s architecture, and so on have these qualities. They act as orientation points, they are places people memorize, and are refferenced by people all over the world.
As for symbolism, famous buildings are a key indicator of a period. They could be a symbol for modernity, tradition, and so on.
As for aesthetics, famous buildings are in the complex region. You can have simple architecture but it’s more of the generic type. The complex architecture such as Frank Lloyd Wrights gugenheim, japanese modern architecture where it has complex relations to nature, and so on. Famous buildings have these things in common. They are complex in theory, they are symbolic of something, and they are used for many things aside from function*.
Function: A functional building protects people from the elements, physical environment including people, and suits the psychological demands of the human mind such as I want a home to stay in or A home is were I am mentally sane plus so on.
Hope I helped you out. I wish you were in SYdney because there is the actual book here. But here are key things to look at your library.
1. Aesthetics
2. Symbolism
3. Environments (in terms of architecture)
4. Function
I was going to answer but when I saw Jon Lang’s dissertation I changed my mind. He has put it so lucidly, far better than I could have.
There are many factors involved but at the end of the day it is a combination of gut feeling and knowledge, in other words, natural experience.
architecture, height and color.
welcome 2 the hotel California
World Famous buildings get a lot more publicity then others. I’ve seen the Eiffel tower in magazines, post cards, school books, movies, and many other places. The oldest standing church west of the Mississippi River is close to my home, historically it is very important, yet I bet very few people outside of this area know of it.
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