Nowadays, the concept of place branding as a one of city/ district’s marketing tool, has become more important. In Indonesia, this concept actually has historical root since 1959 when some of the cities and districts had been given position as autonomousregion based on regulation no 1/ 1959. Initially the slogans or symbols of each cities and districts expressed as visual identity at that time. Currently,the complex symbols,as visual identity, have been used gradually change and evolve in simple form, refers to the visual heritage of the cities and districts; among of its is architectural/ building style. This article intends to show that cities’ iconic architectures is useful for visual references to design a visual identity. It will show, as well, certain characther that make a building/ architecture become iconic and recognisable by people. The method used to get general view/ opinion from people is polling. The result, through a series of stages of the poll, indicate that in Semarang the well known and become iconic buildings are public buildings. Even through formal simplification, these buildings are easily recognizable, so there is enough potential of the buildings facades that can be refer in design process of a visual identity.
Keywords: Facade, Architecture, Visual reference, Identity, Design