Innovative methods of describing structure and scale are more of Macaulay's strong points. To illustrate the comparative sizes of the world's great domes, he depicted how five of these architectural wonders - the Hagia Sophia, St. Peter's Basilica, Les Invalides, the US Capitol and the Pantheon - could fit inside a sixth, the Houston Astrodome.
In 2003, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Williamsburg Bridge, he wrote an "Op-Art" piece for The New York Times, Want to a Build a Bridge? that included a scale silhouette of the bridge with instructions for cutting it out and constructing a newsprint model. (An example of the results is on display.)
Also on view are the sketchbooks that Macaulay used while planning Building Big (2000), his look at the engineering feats that make bridges, tunnels, skyscrapers and domes possible. Franz said her intent had been to demonstrate how Macaulay uses drawing to pose problems - both of engineering and of illustration - and solve them. ("Avoid predictable and dull chronological history of bridge building," reads one sketchbook note to self.)
The exhibition's final section, dedicated to Macaulay's more fanciful, satiric and political work from the late 1970s and early 1980s, may be the least familiar to visitors. Yet, at least for adults, it may prove the most rewarding.
Macaulay often draws parallels between his own work and that of the 18th-century Italian draftsman Giovanni Battista Piranesi, popular for his engravings and etchings of romanticized landscapes. He shares Piranesi's fascination with ruins; many of Macaulay's images in this section of the show focus on remnants of modern structures in some imagined future.
Some images he created in 1976 for a series called Great Moments in Architecture are in the style of Piranesi, and his 1982 Veduta della stazione grand central, which depicts the post-apocalyptic ruins of Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan, makes clear reference to Piranesi's art.
There is a playful aspect to some of this work. Noseschwanstein from 1976 is an image of a grand castle perched on a mountainous proboscis. His 1979 book Motel of Mysteries is a subtle satire of a field with which Macaulay has often been linked: archaeology. In it he humorously postulates the destruction of American civilization in a catastrophic avalanche of junk mail. Then, 2,000 years in the future, an archaeologist stumbles across the ruins of a motel and must decipher the function and meaning of the artifacts he finds inside. Unsurprisingly, the archaeologist gets most of it wrong.
There is also a haunting quality to some drawings. In Unbuilding, from 1980, Macaulay imagines the dismantling of the Empire State Building by a fictional Saudi prince who has purchased the structure to have it rebuilt in his kingdom's oil fields. The book's plot reflects the era's anxieties about energy independence, economic decline and famous landmarks' falling under foreign ownership.
But the images of a symbolic building slowly stripped down to I-beams will resonate with viewers today as it recalls photographs of the World Trade Center's steel skeleton poking above the wreckage of ground zero.
RSS