Architecture, Luxury & Marketing

It appears that the XXI is the century of rapprochement between architecture and the luxury universe. It appears that luxury brands have the ambition to make architecture the pillar of their new marketing strategies. We then witness the incorporation of architecture within the houses, and the appearance of new forms of plural collaborations. Architecture emancipates itself from its functional rigor towards a competitive race for the exceptional, for the iconic. Through the world of luxury, particularly Louis Vuitton, this paper aims to define the icon as an architectural concept. The aim is to see how the architectural icon has become a tool for vectoring and mediatizing the luxury brand. From the embodied icon to the architectural icon, this thesis tends to see how an architectural icon is constructed in the luxury universe, and if it can really still be, today and tomorrow, the tool that will establish the supremacy of the said brand in the contemporary city. By laying the foundations of the icon, of luxury, and of marketing, then through the filters of luxury values, how is an architectural icon conceived, built and acts for luxury?