A beautifully illustrated book of our worlds most iconic buildings.
‘Look Mama! My cheerio looks like the Colosseum!’ Pitter-Patter S shrieked when he was three. Cheerios were a novelty, and so was the Colosseum, which he had just learned was in Rome, was extremely very old, and was half broken down. Our chests swelling with pride, Papa B and I encouraged him to recognize a slew of other epic marvels: The Taj Mahal, Colosseum, Eiffel Tower, Great Wall, Hagia Sophia, Blue Mosque, Statue of Liberty and a handful more. Now that he is five, he’s totally over anything that doesn’t explode dramatically, isn’t super tall or doesn’t transform into a launching-missile-rocket-booster-motorbike. So the Eiffel Tower, Taj Mahal, Statue of Liberty are now pretty mundane. Natural disasters elicit a glimmer of interest, the more consuming the inferno, powerful the eruption or devastating the quake the better. This makes the Great Fire of London, the ruined Colosseum and Pompeii the bees knees: Mama, but when the volcano erupted (Vesuvius) did it go ‘KAAWOOOSH, POW, BAAAANGGGG, GADOOOOOSH?’ Yep, and ‘WHOOOOSHHHH, SSSSSTTTTTTTT, KAAABOMP too’. Wide eyes. Riveted.
At this point I’m feeling quite smug: I’ve managed to combine his love for exploding things with my love of ancient history. Score. But I want to take it further, to give these buildings and places a purpose, to anchor them into his understanding of his world, to make them relevant in a way that he’ll find interesting. It definitely helps that he has seen the Colosseum, Hagia Sophia and the Parthenon in real life, but Papa B may have some minor objections if I announce a field trip to the Great Wall or Terracotta Warriors. And so, when I came across The Story of Buildings I knew I’d stumbled onto a gem.
Hagia Sophia drawn in magnificent cross section.
Written by Patrick Dillon, and illustrated by Stephen Biesty, it’s a glorious exploration of the world’s most iconic buildings. Beautifully illustrated with unique hand-drawn dissections, each building is presented in cross-section enabling a captivating glimpse into how these buildings were created and built. The book is clearly written for children, or young adults and the stories that accompany each illustration are simple, easy to follow and interesting. Buildings include The Parthenon, Hagia Sophia, The Forbidden City, Notre-Dame, the Taj, the Sydney Opera House and many more. This is Pitter-Patter S’s favourite book right now, it’s big on detail but simple in execution which means we can gloss over some bits, and examine others in minute detail.
A glimpse inside the Taj Mahal. It fires up the imagination!
Author Patrick Dillon is a man after my own heart, “My two favourite things are stories and buildings. Telling stories about buildings is as good as it gets.” Well Pat, you have succeeded in creating one seriously captivated five year old!
The Story of Buildings by Patrick Dillon and Stephen Biesty is available from all good book shops, and online from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Waterstones.co.uk, and Exclusive Books (in South Africa).
