The original question here, I think, is one that probably could be answered in the near future, if not the present. I don’t think the form itself precludes or inherently de-emphasizes aesthetic beauty. I think that saying “web sites should be measured by different standards from (say) posters” is kind of like saying “comics should be judged by different standards from art film”—makes sense insofar as that just means that there are different formal elements worthy of consideration, but is kind of a cop-out if used to mean that one can be visual “Art” and the other cannot.

Put another way: I think that saying “web designers have different standards” is exactly the problem. The article you linked suggests that web designers’ standards are right and graphic designers’ standards are wrong because they’re not the ones designing web pages. I think, though, that if there were fewer perceived technical barriers such that graphic designers were designing for the web more, utilizing similar standards to what we see in print, then we’d see more beautiful—and not necessarily less functional—websites. (I have made the same argument about visual aesthetics in gaming, actually, but that’s a topic for another day.)

http://www.thefwa.com

…only one of various sites that cull “good sites.”

But first off, I think it’s important to acknowledge the great variety in kinds of websites. It makes asking for a website that has become iconic design kind of like asking for an iconic use of paint–”website” is so general a term as to be the medium for design, not an immediate example of design itself. So I suspect one may need to be more specific and say what “blog” or “search engine” is iconic design.

Even after making this distinction however, I’m not sure there are blogs or search engines that have stood the design test of time, so maybe no website has transcended the technology precisely because the medium is mediated by technology? After all, despite all the new advancements that now go behind making a poster in the 21st century, you still end up with ink on paper. A logo is still a picture. Websites can have logos, but they exist on a machine (and not even yours) provided that machine is a Macintosh/PC with Firefox, Explorer, etc., and an internet connection. And then, no matter what the website, you use the same bubbly elevator buttons to scroll the page, adjust the window to view the site better, and so on. In other words, the experience of viewing a website is inexorably linked to the hardware and software used to view that site in the first place, perhaps hindering any transcendence that could take place.

But I have seen sites that made me forget I was visiting a website, and I think that’s gets closer to something transcendent, iconic. That these sites tend to involve flash technology is incidental (I can hear Jason groaning,) the strength of these sites relies on adding a layer of separation between the medium for the content, and the content itself, thereby allowing the content to be elevated by the design, and vice versa.

Part of me wants to nominate The Escapist’s old design, but I’m hesitant to do so because what worked about it was that it treated the screen more or less like a print magazine spread. Also, the text fell funny in its paragraphs, such that nearly every column ended in a widow.

Personally, I nominate Kai’s old EiC design. Which I don’t think exists any more, except in my head. But it was beautiful, especially for the time.