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In books about building, the whole art lies in the details. Macaulay gives you a glimpse into the minds of the designers, too: in making a tunnel under the Thames River in London, Marc Brunel was inspired by shipworms, "the scourge of the Royal Navy," mollusks who used shieldlike shells to bore holes through timber "and then had the audacity to create a rigid lining in the wood with material they excreted." Though the poor workers who created Brunel's tunnel shields had to brave fiery explosions of methane gas and vile fumes from centuries of sewage--and as Macaulay rather rudely puts it, "Brunel's shield now seems a bit like a platoon of creaking Star Wars robots leaning against each other for support as they inch their way nervously through the muck"--the construction did the trick. That tunnel begun in 1825 is still part of the London Underground subway system.
Macaulay can construct a sound sentence: a child can grasp his celebration of the art of engineering, and a grownup can read him with childlike glee. --Tim Appelo
| AUTHOR: | David Macaulay |
| CATEGORY: | Book |
| MANUFACTURER: | Walter Lorraine Books |
| ISBN: | 0395963311 |
| TYPE: | Architecture, Architecture Of Specific Structures, Design & Drafting, Planning |
| MEDIA: | Hardcover |
| # OF MEDIA: | 1 |
| UPC: | 046442963312 |
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Customer Reviews of Building Big
A Great Gift for Someone Who Loves Architecture I gave this book as a gift to someone who loves and understands architecture. He found it most interesting. It contains many facts that are not generally know about large, historical structures.
A BIG success
David Macaulay takes the reader on a tour of some of the really big civil engineering structures of our time. Building Big has sections on Bridges, Tunnels, Dams, Domes, and Skyscrapers. Each part of the book describes the design and construction of from four to ten outstanding examples of the structure highlighted. The examples in each category are described in chronological order with some going back to the time of ancient Rome. The drawings that accompany the text are excellent at focusing on the details and techniques described. The integration of text and graphics is wonderful. In each case, Macaulay describes the design objectives, the interplay between the structure and the environment, and the engineering solutions used to bring the structures into being. This is a wonderful book for anyone interested in structural engineering and design. I have not seen the related PBS video series, but I can say that the book stands on its own very well. Highly recommended.
Awesome
Macaulay fans are going to be amazed and impressed by this, his best book yet. It's a companion to the PBS series that's better than the films! A must see and better yet, must buy.