Uncommon Structures, Unconventional Builders

They are the most remarkable constructions in human history from the Tower of Babel to China's Great Wall to Machu Picchu but how and why did they come to be?

From Anasazi cliff dwellings to Gothic cathedrals, Neolithic huts to French chateaux, seventeen of the world's most ambitious and legendary building projects are chronicled in this lively, entertaining book. What unique vision brought each of these structures into being? And what twists and turns did the architects, designers, artisans, and builders encounter on the way to realizing their dreams?

As the author points out in his preface, the planning and raising of a building is so all-consuming a project that it is likely to involve liberal amounts of ambition, hope, fear, greed, pride, and reverence. Though the structure itself may stand for centuries, the story of a building is often buried and forgotten and, eventually, the building is too. No one knows for sure what the Tower of Babel looked like, or the Colossus of Rhodes, or the city of Jericho. Other structures, such as Ireland's Round Towers or the rock city of Petra, have outlived all memory of how or why they were built, or who built them. There are igloos and nomads' tents and early-American cottages being built today based on age-old traditions, by generations who have lost track of how these basic forms of shelter first came to be.

Wide-ranging in scope, encompassing a myriad of cultures, time periods, and building materials, this lush volume offers a surprise on every page, as it celebrates human (and, in one case, avian) ingenuity, perseverance, and persistence of the creative spirit.

Alan Van Dine worked for Koppers, a major producer of architectural and engineering products. He originally wrote these stories as a series of booklets called Tangents, conceived by the communications department of Koppers to speak to the building-design profession as a whole. After receiving 72,000 responses from the series, Koppers decided to adapt the series into an illustrated book.