The Importance of Iconic Buildings for City Image: Konya Science Center Example

Abstract

Science centers are experimental and applied places that are designed to pave the way for people from all age and with different knowledge to learn the information from the source and to trigger their interest towards science. Science centers convert science into an education in an entertaining manner. Moreover, science centers can be defined as places that exhibit history and culture of the geography that are present in addition to their contribution to science, while being places where science and art are merged to each other in harmony. In recent period, scientific events may create attraction for cities in addition to cultural events, Science centers, where education is found together with entertainment, are now becoming more and more popular in the world and they can sometimes serve as an important focal point of the city by attracting more visitors from certain museums. It is seen in recent period that science centers are being designed as iconic buildings with the purpose of creating attention with their different architecture. Science centers, which are designed as iconic buildings with their interest and curious architectural designs, create a new attraction point by drawing tourists to the city along with the educational activities. The aim of this study is to reveal the opinions of the architect in the design of Konya Science Center, to analyze the relationship established by the building with the city, its scale with surrounding texture and human, the access to building, its form, material, technology and its spatial presentation to determine whether it is an iconic building or not. For this purpose, science centers’ design purpose and their importance for the city are explained firstly, then examples across the world are given. Observations and interviews are made, photographs of the building are taken and any kind of written and drawn resources are utilized in order to determine whether the selected building is in accordance with the definition “iconic building”. As a result, it is determined with this study that Konya Science Center is “an icon building” for the city in parallel with the developing trends in design and construction technology fields in general terms after its analysis in architectural terms. It is hope that Konya Science Center that is featuring icon building will be attention center for Konya city after Mevlana Museum because of owing to its different form, material selection, building and Leeds certified sustainable building.