Unbuilding [Hardcover]

David Macaulay (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 10 and up | Grade Level: 5 and up

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this wonderfully urbane fantasy, the Empire State Building is dismantled after being purchased by a foreigner who wishes to re-erect it closer to home. All ages.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"It is not a work of nonfiction but a work of fantasy, and not the story of the making of the skyscraper but the story of the unmaking of a very particular one, the Empire State Building . . . The exquisite drawing style that marked Mr. Macaulay's earlier works on architecture remains as whimsical as ever." The New York Times

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Hardcover: 80 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children; First Edition edition (September 8, 1980)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395294576
• ISBN-13: 978-0395294574
• Product Dimensions: 12.5 x 9.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,105,460 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

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.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Imagine The Empire State Building Disassembled And Moved..., November 8, 2006

By 

Notnadia (Currently upstairs.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Unbuilding (Hardcover)

When as a child I first read this book, I was captivated by it, as I was by all of David Macaulay's imaginative works of illustration and storytelling. And yet even then I thought it was very strange, this charming and odd tale set in an undefined future in which an Arab sheik purchases the Empire State Building and has it unassembled brick by brick for eventual reconstruction in his homeland (a la London Bridge, which today rests in Arizona). I loved reading about how even a vast building might be "unbuilt". I also loved learning about the interior anatomy of a tall building (which was really David Macaulay's intent all along) and I liked the quirky little hidden additions Macaulay always includes for a sharp-eyed reader to discover (like King Kong as one of the workers on the project). Today in an era when it is impossible to read or even think of this 1980 book without being confronted with the destruction of the World Trade Center, Unbuilding seems even more bizarre and ironic. Macaulay, brilliant and creative man that he is, wrote Unbuilding in another age, a more confident time and place, when it was unthinkable that New York's skyscrapers, those mighty symbols of commerce and human achievement, were in any way endangered by anything less titanic than nuclear war, or that they would not stand for millennia, the Gothic cathedrals of an age wherein faith was replaced by the relative egalitarianism of free-flowing commerce. Ah, how different was my perception of Unbuilding upon my most recent reading: the first since at least the early 1990's. I was keenly aware that in 2006 this book might never be marketed at all, and if it was how different its plot would have been. Nonetheless, or perhaps for that very reason, Unbuilding seems more important than ever to me, and I hope it stays in print for a long time to come. Read this thirty-page book if you get a chance. It says a lot about the near-miraculous process by which tall buildings are made, and it shines metaphorical light on the psychological reactions of we contemporary Americans.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read this now., February 5, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Unbuilding (Hardcover)

This is a highly unlikely story. But it is rich with detail, and the author's drawings are, as usual, incredible. The ending is the also a delight. This is one you will buy for your kids but keep for yourself

41 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars There are Better Choices, June 8, 2000

By 

Jeremy M. Hanna - See all my reviews

This review is from: Unbuilding (Hardcover)

It must have seemed like a good idea at the time, but somewhere between conception and execution Unbuilding unraveled. The drawings are, without a doubt, spectacular. The story is clever, but the love of the subject matter is missing. The story, at its most basic, is about the disassembly of the Empire State Building. The details of its existence, however, are nowhere to be found. There is, for example, no information on how many tons of steel were used; how many thousands of rivets. Missing too, are any explanations of mechanical systems such as how water was pumped to bathrooms one thousand feet off the ground, or how the elevators safely and efficiently carried their passengers up 85 stories.

My suspicion is that Unbuilding's weakness lies at its foundation. Organized disassembly just isn't as interesting as a construction project. To be fair to Mr. Macaulay, it's not a bad book. Certainly, if this were the first of his work that you had seen, you would be suitably impressed. But in the context of his efforts prior to and after this one, it fails to captivate. My advice is that, if you are collecting the series, you'll most certainly want Unbuilding. If, however, you are new to Macaulay's work, Castle, Cathedral, City and Mill are significantly better choices.