Rubble

A history of key episodes in the world of demolition. Stretching over more than 500 years of razing & toppling, it looks back to London¿s Great Fire of 1666, where wreckers blew houses apart with gunpowder to halt the furious blaze, & spotlights the advent of dynamite that would later fuel epochal feats of unbuilding. It also surveys the invention of the wrecking ball, the stirring ruin of N.Y.¿s old Pennsylvania Station; & the ever busy bulldozers in places as diverse as Detroit,...
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A history of key episodes in the world of demolition. Stretching over more than 500 years of razing & toppling, it looks back to London¿s Great Fire of 1666, where wreckers blew houses apart with gunpowder to halt the furious blaze, & spotlights the advent of dynamite that would later fuel epochal feats of unbuilding. It also surveys the invention of the wrecking ball, the stirring ruin of N.Y.¿s old Pennsylvania Station; & the ever busy bulldozers in places as diverse as Detroit, Berlin, & the British countryside. The book makes first-hand forays to implosion sites & digs into wrecking¿s historical record. Explores what happens when buildings fall, when monuments topple into memory, & when ¿destructive creativity¿ tears down to build again. Illustrations.