In a devastated real-estate market, builders and developers are clinging to an ambitious word with magical properties. In New York, a proposed 56-story luxury residential tower, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, though as yet unbuilt, already claims to be "iconic." A Brooklyn condominium high-rise with a textured façade of jagged, light- and dark-colored glass designed by SOM, the same firm that designed Chicagos Sears Tower, promises "iconic design within reach." A Seattle developer, taking no chances, has simply named his forthcoming residential tower The Icon. Apparently, everyone would like their building to be an icon, but its not that easy.
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