Buildings, perhaps unlike any other art form or edifice, have a capacity to influence or become part of a place's cultural identity and history. Defining an architectural monument is, however, an ambiguous exercise ? most of their ilk only reach this status years after completion. AD Classics are ArchDaily's continually updated collection of longer-form building studies of the world's most significant architectural projects. Here we've assembled five structures and buildings which, often aside from original intentions, embody that most ephemeral feeling: a sense of progress.

Space Needle / John Graham & Company. Image Courtesy of Wikimedia user Rattlhed (Public Domain)

Buildings, perhaps unlike any other art form or edifice, have a capacity to influence or become part of a place's cultural identity and history. Defining an architectural monument is, however, an ambiguous exercise ? most of their ilk only reach this status years after completion. AD Classics are ArchDaily's continually updated collection of longer-form building studies of the world's most significant architectural projects. Here we've assembled five structures and buildings which, often aside from original intentions, embody that most ephemeral feeling: a sense of progress. Eiffel Tower / Gustave Eiffel (1889)The world had never seen anything like the graceful iron form that rose from Paris? Champ de Mars in the late 1880s. The ?Eiffel Tower,? built as a temporary installation for the...