Examination on the change of city landmarks between industrial revolution and globalisation: Paris as a case

Landmarks have become symbols due to their effects on the city. These symbols are defined as landmarks and turn the cities into focal points that are a sight to behold, thus ultimately contributing to the urban economy. Landmarks have undergone some changes in terms of function and building typology from past to present. This study focuses on examining and documenting such changes. The industrial revolution has resulted in increased industrial production, numerous migrations from rural to urban areas, and concordantly, the urban space and urban life have undergone fundamental changes. The change in urban life as a result of the industrial revolution also triggered the change of urban space in line with the needs for new building types. In this period, many religious and public buildings with landmark attributes were built. Factors such as increasing population in the cities, developing technology and product diversity play a role in the creation of new urban landmarks. By virtue of globalisation, the access area of the innovations that occurred in the period of the Industrial Revolution increased, the boundaries of nation-states weakened and the cities went into a global competition. Some cities, which are at the center of this mechanism, became the focus of the capital as global cities. The urban architecture also underwent a radical change in this period, as it did in the industrial revolution. Initiatives aiming to come to the forefront also continued the competition through architecture and caused the concept of 'iconic building' to be ingenerated in global cities. The term 'landmark', which conceptually entered in literature in the 1960s, also started being associated with the iconic buildings in the globalisation period. In this thesis examining the change of landmarks during the period between the Industrial Revolution and globalisation processes, the change of the landmarks of the world cities that are chosen in accordance with the specified parameters and of Paris that was chosen as a field study was examined in the context of the function, scale, and building technology.