Unbuilding

By David Macaulay

“In this wonderfully urbane fantasy” the Caldecott Medal-winning author and illustrator imagines the process of dismantling the Empire State Building (Publishers Weekly).
 
The acclaimed author of City and Pyramid now applies his inquisitive mind and stunningly detailed artwork to one of New York’s most iconic buildings. When the Empire State Building is purchased by an eccentric prince who wants to move it to the Arabian Desert, the intricate process of unbuilding begins.
 
Along the way, Macaulay takes young readers on a tour of the skyscraper’s history and architecture and explains the many feats of engineering that went into its construction. His straightforward, informative text is illustrated with “perhaps the finest series of visually expansive, black-and-white perspective drawings, incisive renderings of the skyscraper and its celebrated ‘views’” (The Washington Post).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Oct 26, 1987
• ISBN: 9780547348414

David Macaulay

David Macaulay is an award-winning author and illustrator whose books have sold millions of copies in the United States alone, and his work has been translated into a dozen languages. Macaulay has garnered numerous awards including the Caldecott Medal and Honor Awards, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, the Christopher Award, an American Institute of Architects Medal, and the Washington Post–Children’s Book Guild Nonfiction Award. In 2006, he was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, given “to encourage people of outstanding talent to pursue their own creative, intellectual, and professional inclinations.” Superb design, magnificent illustrations, and clearly presented information distinguish all of his books. David Macaulay lives with his family in Vermont.

Book preview

title page

Contents

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Title Page

Contents

Copyright

Acknowledgment

Dedication

Introduction

Unbuilding

Glossary

Coming Soon from David Macaulay

About the Author

Copyright © 1980 by David Macaulay

All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [e-mail] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

www.hmhco.com

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Macaulay, David.

Unbuilding.

SUMMARY: This fictional account of the dismantling and removal of the Empire State Building describes the structure of a skyscraper and explains how such an edifice would be demolished.

1. Wrecking—Juvenile literature. 2. New York (City). Empire State Building—Juvenile literature. [1. Wrecking. 2. New York (City). Empire State Building. 3. Skyscrapers] I. Title.

TH153.M23 690'.523 80-15491

ISBN 978-0-395-29457-4 hardcover

ISBN 978-0-395-45425-1 paperback

eISBN 978-0-547-34841-4

v3.0816

Special thanks to Julius Lipsett in New York

and to Ruth on the second floor.

To those of us

who don’t always

appreciate things

until they are gone.

[Image]

By the end of the 1920s the island of Manhattan was the undisputed skyscraper capital of the world. Since the turn of the century its buildings had been forced to grow upward because of both the high cost of land and the desire to build as much rentable floor space as possible on it. The construction of almost two hundred skyscrapers between 1902 and 1929 was made possible by improvements in the quality of steel, in the design of a structural-steel frame which could support both the floors and walls of these buildings, and in the capabilities of the all-important elevator. The erection of higher and higher buildings was encouraged both by increasing confidence in these technological advances and by a growing sense of competition among the buildings’ owners.

It is not surprising that sometime

Reviews for Unbuilding

[saraluisa · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book chronicles an amazing part of history that I never knew about. It didn't quite matter that I had never been to the Empire State Building, Macaulay's illustrations create a magical world that made me hope for a different ending. The book, for those of us who are not architecturally literate, can be read solely by its pictures. For everyone else who understands and enjoys architecture, the text provides a rich explanation of what it took to dismantle the Empire State Building.

[merrymary_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Unbuilding is another David Macaulay book that show showcases his meticulous attention to detail and his bizarre sense of humor. In this scenario, an eccentric mideast prince has bought the Empire State Building and is intent on taking it apart piece by piece to move it to the Arabian Desert.This oddball back story makes possible the "unbuilding" of the iconic structure, and we can see how the building was built as it is slowly dismantled. Fascinating.The ending is in keeping with the offbeat humor of the author - can't reveal it here, but I laughed out loud. (In real life I probably wouldn't have...)

[lukesilvera · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great for your spacial learners. Helps show students the actually size of the building. Great illustrations.

[dpevers_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I liked the illustrations, as with all of Macauley's books, but the story was too contrived and took away from the drawings.

[kaethe_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

2010 May 29
Yes, I'm a sucker for Macaulay.

***

It's fiction, but it's wonderfully educational. It would never have occurred to me to ask how one would de-construct the Empire State building, assuming one wanted to. But I marvel at the engineering necessary to un-build. Plus, more cool stuff about the building of the Empire State than I knew before.

2013 May 5

It's spring and a woman's fancy returns to the Empire State Building. I love this book.

Library copy

[m8a8harding · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What a great book. A work of love. So simple but it reminds of Matthew Barney in some ways.