Unbuilding was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1980. The conceit is brilliant: a wealthy prince from an unnamed Arab nation purchases the Empire State Building with the intention of dismantling it and reassembling it in his homeland. The book traces the process of taking apart one of the world’s most famous buildings — in reverse order of its construction — revealing its structure from the top down: the antenna, the mooring mast, the setbacks, the steel frame, the foundations.
By reversing his usual method (showing deconstruction rather than construction), Macaulay achieves a double illumination: the reader learns how the Empire State Building was built by watching it be unbuilt, and simultaneously confronts questions about why buildings matter. Can a building be separated from its context? Is the Empire State Building still the Empire State Building if it stands in a desert rather than in midtown Manhattan? What makes a landmark meaningful — its structure or its location?
The book is also subtly political: written in 1980, during the era of OPEC wealth and Middle Eastern investment in Western assets, the premise of an Arab prince buying an American icon carries implications that Macaulay acknowledges without belaboring. The book ends with the building half-demolished — a state that suggests neither triumph nor tragedy but transformation.
Collecting Unbuilding
First edition (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1980): Oversize hardcover with dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $25–$60
- Very good: $10–$25