Uncommon Structures, Unconventional Builders

The format is approximately 10.25 inches by 12.25 inches. 206, [2] pages. Illustrations. Index, Illustrated dust jacket. This is a heavy, oversized book that if sent outside of the United States would require additional shipping costs. 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. These narratives were intended to be a series of discussions for the building design professionals and recommended as non-urgent reading for architects and engineers. 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? Why on earth did they build that? 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. Presumed First Edition as a compilation. Apparently a second printing.…