In materials, shape, and function, it was envisaged as a towering symbol of modernity.

Vogue says this season's "strong, seductive woman" becomes in Newton's hands "a towering symbol of the new femininity."

By the 1920's, skyscrapers were the towering symbols of the city, and ironworkers were their glorified makers, "cowboys of the sky," as they were called.

And The Throat of the World is a towering symbol of that.

It is intended to be a towering symbol of the rebirth of Times Square, but the mirrored Conde Nast building under construction at Broadway and 42d Street has so far drawn attention mostly because of its spectacular accidents.

It is so majestic here, so silent and peaceful and remote, that it is hard to remember that these camps are one of the century's towering symbols of cruelty and despair.

The most towering symbol of that was Ru Paul, who walked the runway in the finale.

But she also recorded standards, and she remained closely associated with her father, the towering symbol of the previous musical era.

The Millennium Dome, meant to be a towering symbol of prosperity, closed in January in an ignominious cloud of deficits and finger-pointing.

The race for head of the Palestinian Authority is no contest, since Yasir Arafat, a towering national symbol, is competing against a respected but electorally impotent veteran of the political left, Samiha Khalil, who is 72.