Waiting for the End of the World (Paperback)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From The New Yorker

In St. Petersburg, the Trendy Griboyedov Club, a brightly painted subterranean night spot, occupies the site of a Cold War-era bomb shelter. Elsewhere, thousands of similar shelters sit empty and decaying or have been converted to mundane uses such as data storage, now that nuclear fear has been supplanted by more amorphous threats. Ross's photographs of shelters around the world are colorful and melancholy, suffused with a creepy Egglestonian light. "Shelters are the architecture of failure," he says. "The failure of moderation, politics, communication, diplomacy, and sustaining humanity." Most amazing is the scale of such hidden places as Beijing's Underground City, built to hold three hundred and fifty thousand people, or the bunker beneath the Greenbrier hotel, in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, designed to serve as the emergency shelter for the entire U.S. Congress.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

Review

"[a] jolly little volume. . . from the glory days of nuclear paranoia." -- World of Interiors, December 2004

...a survey of postapocalyptic havens...serenly beautiful, if chilling. They combine stripped-down survivalist aesthetics...with a troglydytic domesticity -- Wired, July 2004

...colorful and melancholy, suffused with a creepy Egglestonion light -- The New Yorker, July 5, 2004

Richard Ross turns his lens on such underground hideaways and finds an eerie sort of loveliness. -- Time Out New York, June 17, 2004

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press; 1 edition (April 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568984669
• ISBN-13: 978-1568984667
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 7 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #322,727 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A quiet little gem, June 9, 2004

By	Jeff Brouws (Red Hook, New York USA) - See all my reviews

I had the pleasure of discovering Richard Ross' latest photographic endeavor at Book Expo last week in Chicago, where it was prominently displayed in the Princeton Architectural Press' booth. The photographs are splendid; quirky, heartfelt, enigmatic, a combo Ross effortlessly seems to get into a lot of his work.

How Ross also got into all these places is another amazing component of this project: he has to be one of the most intrepid, hard-working photo-artists presently at work.

The book is at once a thoughtful reminder of a former era of nuclear peril, and yet the images have a contemporary resonance, faced as we are (once again) with the threat of a world gone nuclear. Congratulations to the author on this tour-de-force effort.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, February 8, 2009

By	C. Mathis "ace" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

The descriptions of the places and people behind these pictures was really interesting. I would have given more stars if the pictures were bigger. Some of them were as small as thumbnail pictures.

4.0 out of 5 stars Great subject, but book is lacking..., September 16, 2009

By	Arvin "AAA" (USA) - See all my reviews

The subject of armageddon, nuclear or other means, and how certain people equip themselves to survive it, is continually interesting. The author addresses some of the issues of the topic well, with a small interview in the beginning, and with the numerous photos in the book. In all, I would say the book is about 20% text, 60% photos, and 20% white space. I was very excited about this book and the material, but was left feeling slightly unfufilled. There are many examples of shelters, ranging in dates from 1000BC to present day; showing an interesting progression. For each shelter, there is a whole page dedicated to the description, that is only half filled with large text. I would have like some more details about the specific situation of each. Then there are anywhere from only 1 to 5+ photos of the shelter. These were very interesting, but many were too small; with 2 to 4 shrunk to fit the page. With the amount of time the author spent gathering this work, the reduced photos do not due justice. If this were made into a coffee table book, with individual large photo prints on nice stock, I would certainly recommend it. As it is, I found it just a passing curiosity, lacking in depth.