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And I put sort of circles around key familiar elements, like the fire hydrant, and a manhole cover, a ladder disappearing into the street, and a construction site excavation. So I start with a double page spread of an intersection that we're going to look at in detail. TEACHINGBOOKS: Can you talk about Underground?ĭAVID MACAULAY: Underground was different from Castle and Cathedral and Pyramid, in that it really is intended as a guide for pedestrians wandering down the city street. You've got to be driven by something to do that. We're talking about lifting blocks of stone 150 feet in the air, while standing on, in some cases, pretty flimsy wooden scaffolding. And that would ultimately depend on the courage of these people to get to the tops of this scaffolding to hoist these stones into place. And that would depend on the kind of scaffolding that could be built.
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But, that would depend on the materials at hand. Now, I didn't get into the personalities because that's a whole different book, but I want you to know that the master planner was sort of making decisions as he decided where the stones should go, where the buttresses should go, where the spires should go, and so on. TEACHINGBOOKS: Your information books seem to be tributes to design and builders.ĭAVID MACAULAY: Yeah, the architecture books are really as much about the building as they are about the people who built the buildings. So I'd better pick something that I'm really interested in. Basically, I'm going to be living with this idea for a year or two or three. I'm going to have to spend a lot of time reading and researching and then, actually working out the book itself. When I choose a subject, I choose a subject that interests me because I know that I'm going to be with it for a long time. How do you go about selecting what these books will be about?ĭAVID MACAULAY: When I sit down to choose a book, I choose a subject. TEACHINGBOOKS: You've chosen an interesting variety of subjects for your non-fiction books. So, Mole and Toad and so on and so forth were every bit a part of my life as my brother and sister and my parents. The Wind in the Willows and life outside were one and the same thing.
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The big book for me in those early years was The Wind in the Willows. It was just me, running up and down hills in the woods and looking for boroughs and wondering what lived there. I could be anybody I wanted to be out in those woods. That's, I think, where my imagination really began to develop and grow. So I spent a lot of time outside, in the woods. The other rooms were for sleeping and then there was the living room for company, which we never got into. We ate there and did work there and stuff like that. We all basically lived in one room of this house. Grew up in a very small house in the north of England.
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Have you always been that way?ĭAVID MACAULAY: When I was a kid, I was inquisitive and often went outside and looked for answers. TEACHINGBOOKS: Based on your books, you appear to be a rather inquisitive person. With David Macaulay Insights Beyond the Movieĭavid Macaulay, interviewed in his studio in Rhode Island on August 14, 2001.