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Failed Icons

Why it's so hard to make unforgettable architecture.

By |Posted Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2006, at 11:59 AM ET

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Click here to read a slide-show essay about the elements that make for an iconic building.

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Witold Rybczynski is Slate's architecture critic His latest book is The Biography of a Building: How Robert Sainsbury and Norman Foster Built a Great Museum. Visit his Web site. Follow him on Twitter.