Architecture and City Branding: Role of Iconic buildings

Abstract

City branding represents an interesting topic to researchers and policy makers. As of late, cities of developing nations have picked to utilize city branding as a strategy to help them compete economically with other cities in global. City branding use architecture especially beside other ways to make cities more visible, competitive and relevant to global world. According to various literature; iconic buildings are a basic tool of city branding. Using icons or symbols by architecture is old as the civilization began. Iconic or signature buildings have an important role as magnets; they can attract investments and tourists. Such structures reflect their cities identity and represent our understanding and thinking about these cities. As of late, iconic buildings have increased expanding prevalence among approach policymakers and city designers. The premise of this development can be found in fruitful cases of iconic buildings that made cities vital after having a critical bad image. This paper aims to study city branding in terms of architecture and especially iconic buildings. The research highlights the definitions of brand, branding and city branding in relevance to architecture. It also highlights the importance of using iconic buildings as a tool for branding the city. In this sense, the research analyses two successful examples; Burj Khalifa in U.A.E and Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt. The paper concludes that iconic buildings could express the identities of countries and help them to compete globally.