Iconic buildings in urban regeneration process: Bilbao and Valencia

20th century had brought many changes with the impacts of globalization. Such as the flow of technology, capital and information, the movement of people across borders, consumption society and these changes had affected urban life styles, urban usages and architectural practices. In this context in architectural practices modern iconic buildings had appeared in the urban place based on the rise of consumption and performance. These iconic buildings play an important role in the process of city image design.Cities which had been affected by economic and urban decline, had turned into cities of finance and service with their new dynamic and international image in the competitive world. Cities regenerate their economy and urban space with new developments based on tourism and culture. In the urban projects iconic buildings play an important role and become the focal point of the regeneration process.In this research appearing of the iconic buildings, tourism and culture-led regeneration concepts and their impacts to the cities have been studied and compared with similar examples from city of Bilbao and Valencia.