As a city that has seen its landscape and urban fabric in constant radical change, a new iconic observation tower for Terneuzen to put its city on the map again seemed to be an appropriate objective. Though the request for it to become iconic became a contradictory inner debate; For whom is an icon, and what added value will it give? The dictionary describes the meaning of an icon as follows: “A person or thing widely admired especially for having great influence or significance in a particular sphere”. A seemingly impossible thing to construct from scratch. 

Although counter intuitive and aware of the decreasing changes of winning the competition, we believed that a contrary proposal or as we could say an ‘’anti icon’’ could trigger a certain kind of reflection and usage which is more productive than asked in the brief, with the aim of enhancing the city’s residents’ (human and non-human) well-being and quality of life.