Rubble: Unearthing the History of Demolition

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Overview

Ride the Wrecking Ball Through the History of Demolition

Rubble is the first-ever biography of the wrecking trade, a riveting, character-filled narrative of how the black art of demolition grew to become a multi-billion-dollar business, an extreme-spectator sport, and a touchstone for what we value and what we disdain.

Rich with stories of demolition’s quirky impresarios—including Mark Loizeaux, the world-famous engineer of destruction who ...

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Rubble: Unearthing the History of Demolition

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Overview

Ride the Wrecking Ball Through the History of Demolition

Rubble is the first-ever biography of the wrecking trade, a riveting, character-filled narrative of how the black art of demolition grew to become a multi-billion-dollar business, an extreme-spectator sport, and a touchstone for what we value and what we disdain.

Rich with stories of demolition’s quirky impresarios—including Mark Loizeaux, the world-famous engineer of destruction who brought Seattle’s Kingdome to the ground in mere seconds—this account makes firsthand forays to implosion sites and digs extensively into wrecking’s little-known historical record. Told with arresting detail and energy, this tale reveals the scientific, social, economic, and personal reasons for why we unbuild our world.

Named to the “Best of 2005” lists of Time Out New York and The Village Voice

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Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly
The controlled reduction of buildings to rubble is "the black art of our time," writes Byles. In this colorful thematic history of the demolition trade (a subject he was pursuing, it should be said, before the destruction of the Twin Towers), he rightfully calls Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, "the patron saint of creative destruction." Only in the 1910s did the simple need to topple skyscrapers emerge as a fact of urban renewal. Before 1900, demolition was only sporadically used to prevent the spread of fire, and was largely an inefficient matter of pulling buildings down, not exploding or imploding them. Over time, the dangers of wrecking balls led to an increased emphasis on hydraulics and contained explosives. Today, the ostentatious annihilation of gargantuan stadia and casinos draws awestruck throngs. Byles examines this history, looking at the "clear-cutting of entire neighborhoods" in Paris by Baron Haussmann ("who called himself `artist-demolitionist' "), the "sorry end" of New York's original, monumental Pennsylvania Station (and its impact on the urban preservation movement) and the destruction of the Dunes Hotel in Las Vegas. With brio, Byles ably and pungently excavates the shadowy crannies of this underappreciated art, summarized by one practitioner as "a little dynamite, judiciously placed." 25 b&w photos. Agent, Michelle Tessler. (Dec.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Byles, an accomplished urban studies scholar, chronicles the previously unexplored history of demolition as experienced in Europe and the United States from the 17th century to the present. As architectural trends altered both the outward appearance and the interior structure of buildings, demolition practices adapted to include powerful new innovations such as the wrecking ball and dynamite. Byles details specific demolition projects, including the large-scale initiative led by Baron Georges-Eugene Haussmann in Paris to alter the 19th-century city's layout and the 20th-century destruction of public housing projects in Detroit. Byles includes quotes from a large number of personal accounts of various demolition projects. But while he seeks to place the practice of demolition in a larger social and economic context, he offers little analysis beyond the personal accounts and no comprehensive understanding of the larger phenomenon; the reader is left to interpret events independently. Still, this work is a timely beginning of the exploration of the history of demolition. Recommended for public libraries.-Kristin Whitehair, Kansas State Univ., Manhattan Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
A wry history of modernity's infatuation with "unbuilding"-and damn the costs-from the London Fire to 9/11. Architecture critic Byles's debut examines the under-acknowledged, atavistic social enthusiasm for "smashing things," exploring how the once-ridiculed industry of demolition is "propelled to pop-culture status around the world as a de facto extreme sport," thanks in part to the spectacle implosions of Las Vegas. Once, house-wreckers created crucial firebreaks during epic urban conflagrations, beginning in 17th-century Europe and continuing through the Great Chicago Fire and the London Blitz. Haussmann's clear-cutting of entire neighborhoods in Paris provided a template for future avatars of bureaucratic destruction like New York's Robert Moses. Prior to the Moses era, New York's feverish construction cycles produced a 1920s cultural archetype embodied by Albert Volk, a "one-time immigrant wise guy" turned millionaire wrecking tycoon whose workers, a piratical bunch, seemed cavalier about aesthetics and safety. Yet in Volk's time, skilled, specialized wreckers became obsolete as the industry was transformed by machinery and explosives. Byles ably depicts the bizarre postwar narrative of "urban renewal" that made demolition so culturally prominent, including the wholesale destruction of Detroit by residents and would-be developers alike and the sacking of the old Pennsylvania Station, which sparked the contemporary preservationist movement. (As the New York Times editorialized, "Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves.") The narrative is propelled by his wonkish glee for the topic, capturing the mechanical minutiae of destructive technology beyonddynamite and "skull crackers" (wrecking balls) and the shady or thin-skinned eccentrics who populate this increasingly media-savvy industry. Mark Loizeaux, "philosopher king of deconstruction" and Discovery Channel favorite, also gets his due. Unfortunately, Byles largely refuses to acknowledge the social and historical costs of urban gentrification: His typical tactic is to cite with postmodernist awe the monstrous demolition statistics accompanying building booms in cities like Chicago, but not to depict the cheap hideousness of much new construction there. It won't please preservationists, but Byles offers a colorful take on this strangely upbeat blue-collar milieu. Agent: Michelle Tessler/Tessler Literary Agency
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780307345288
  • Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
  • Publication date: 11/28/2006
  • Edition description: Reprinted Edition
  • Pages: 368
  • Sales rank: 1,122,527
  • Product dimensions: 5.28 (w) x 8.01 (h) x 0.79 (d)

Meet the Author

Jeff Byles has written feature articles and critical reviews about architecture, urbanism, and culture for the New York Times, Metropolis, and other publications. He earned his MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of Alaska Anchorage and lives in New York City. Visit his website at jeffbyles.com.

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Table of Contents

1 Erase-atecture 7
2 Fireballs and skull crackers 23
3 Fragmentation at a price 69
4 Haussmann's Paris and beyond 105
5 Sacking Penn station 135
6 Wrecker forever 166
7 There goes the Ghetto 196
8 Disappeared Detroit 222
9 Rubble and revelation 250
10 Demolition derby 279
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