Iconic buildings’ contribution toward urbanism

Abstract

Buildings and the environment are indistinguishably linked. The buildings become part of the physical environment, stirring the city image, living conditions, social wellbeing and economic profile. Iconic buildings are good examples for this mutual relationship. Their distinctiveness plays a key role in configuring their surroundings. And their impact ripples could extend to cover the whole city as related to the typology of buildings themselves.This paper proposes a conceptual framework to highlight the impacts of iconic buildings on their surrounding environment. The developed framework is used to investigate the impacts of Bibliotheca Alexandrina on both its surroundings and on all the city of Alexandria as well.