Works in Progress

A photographic chronicle of landmark buildings and projects under construction from the 1860s onward, from the Washington Monument to the Channel Tunnel. Rosenbaum, head of the Historic American Engineering Record, draws on news accounts, architects' records, and other archival sources to describe the evolution of architectural and construction techniques. He discusses some 85 structures, such as skyscrapers, public monuments, bridges, theaters, and stadiums, tracing the growth of landmark photography and historic preservation and providing key facts about each site. Unfortunately, most entries are illustrated by only one (albeit large) b&w photo. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

At any construction site, notice the passersby pausing to watch the activity, trying to imagine the finished building's appearance. This handsome album is a repository for that human impulse, with artfully composed black-and-white photos of 85 structures during construction, bordered with one column of text. Most but not all are world renowned and stand in America: the government buildings and monuments that stud Washington, D.C.; the famed commercial towers of New York and Chicago; conduits of transportation such as the Panama Canal, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Boston subway, or Route 66; individual dwellings from Wright's Fallingwater to a sharecropper's cabin; and a category of the plainly strange (but every compiler deserves to indulge a vice), such as the set of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington or Disneyland. Dramatic, aesthetic views lend this an eye-catching place in library displays. Gilbert Taylor