> "It is one of the most recognizable buildings in the world"
Why do the USA press and people insist that if it's famous in the US it's famous in the rest of the world? I only guess it looks like a pentagon but for non-English speaking countries (most of the world) I wouldn't say it's one of the most recognizable buildings.
Just do a quick google search (probably with anonymous browsing/VPN?) of "famous buildings" and you'll see it's nowhere near them.
Edit: if you can read this (English + HN) you and your friends/family are most likely not part of the rest of the world, but I agree that I messed up confusing famous with recognizable.
I'd say that as famous buildings go, the Pentagon is up near the top of my passive vocabulary - instantly recognizable and nameable. Washington, D.C. is rich in those.
But actively? No. If tasked with naming ten or twenty world famous buildings, I simply wouldn't think of it. Eiffel Tower, Sydney Opera House, the Pantheon (oh yes), and somehow, Word Trade Center, even if it is no more, but no Pentagon would occur to me.
>instantly recognizable and nameable. Washington D.C. is rich in those.
I'm curious as to what other instantly recognizable and nameable buildings are in Washington D.C. to a non-American. I can think of the Pentagon and the White House. I can't really think of any others I would think a non-American would immediately recognize and be able to name. The Capitol, maybe? The Washington Monument?
I'm also wondering, with time, if the rebuilt World Trade Center will become just as recognizable. It certainly is striking in the Manhattan skyline, but it just doesn't seem "the same" to me for some reason I can't put my finger on.
Nope. I couldn't identify those, and I visited DC when I was about 14.
The Washington Monument (the big obelisk thing?), the White House, and the Pentagon -- the last as much because it's used in the news in the same way that "10 Downing Street" is, but unlike a London street, the Pentagon is a unique, distinctive structure.
I'd put the Pantheon obove the Parthenon, yes. For one thing, it is - magically - a functioning building, which just happens to have been going for 1800 years.
They're more than likely American, I know me and a few others have gone through phases of randomly pointing out common "misconceptions" like that to my fellow citizens! Mostly harmless
Same here. Any movie remotely related to the cold war (or just any conflict involving America) will probably have dramatic views of the Pentagon, often with "The Pentagon" as a caption.
There's a difference between being "an attraction" and "recognizable".
"most recognizable" and "famous" are correlated but not identical. The pentagon is not simply well-known, it's also very recognizable because - well, because it's a huge freakin' pentagon, and there aren't many other buildings that look anything like it.
Same applies to lesser-known Frank Gehry buildings, as one example. Many people might know the Guggenheim Bilbao, but might look at the much less well-known DZ Bank building in Berlin and think "that must be a Gehry!"
I'm getting down voted to oblivion, but in the UK Ive never seen a uk news reporter stand in front of the pentagon. Nore a French reporter. Maybe it's a USA thing?
In some sense you don't have to recognize the Pentagon to know it when you see it. Everyone knows that the words "the Pentagon" are used as a metonym for the US military, and it's pretty much the only pentagonal building. So if you saw a pentagonal building you'd say "Hey I bet that's the Pentagon" even if you'd never seen it before.
Its continuos involvement in international politics since the Cold War made the Pentagon universally famous (mostly in the bad sense). Also, its milimalistic fascist-like architecture makes it more easily recognizable than other simmilar symbols like the White House or the Kremlin (who actually knows what the Kremlin looks like?).
Many Westerners are under the impression that St. Basil's Cathederal is the Kremlin. It's a bit like thinking that the Washington Monument is the White House.
The Kremlin is a whole bunch of buildings, kind of like the Tower of London. It contains multiple palaces and churches, built over the course of ~400 years, in somewhat of a variety of architectural styles. What it looks like depends on which of those buildings you're looking at.
Why do the USA press and people insist that if it's famous in the US it's famous in the rest of the world? I only guess it looks like a pentagon but for non-English speaking countries (most of the world) I wouldn't say it's one of the most recognizable buildings.
Just do a quick google search (probably with anonymous browsing/VPN?) of "famous buildings" and you'll see it's nowhere near them.
Edit: if you can read this (English + HN) you and your friends/family are most likely not part of the rest of the world, but I agree that I messed up confusing famous with recognizable.